


Peace Stained with Blood

by Drogna



Series: No Peace [1]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Becomes a crossover, Episode: s02e13 Land of the Lost, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Rip Needs A HUg, Rip needs help, Rip-centric, RipFic, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-05 10:19:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 42,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10304618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drogna/pseuds/Drogna
Summary: Rip is finally back to being his old self, but Thawne twisted his mind and Rip has no idea how to deal with the things that he did whilst he wasn't in control. He's not even convinced that it wasn't really him in some way. He always knew that he had darkness inside him but he'd never have called himself a killer until now. He'd never thought of himself as anything other than a good man until he wasn't. Team Legends enlist the help of Team Flash to help Rip, but that's the last thing that Rip wants.This fic starts just before the end of Land of the Lost and diverges from the episode ending.





	1. Traitor of the Worst Kind

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a sucker for angst and I've been waiting for the moment when they restored Rip back to his former self. I knew they'd move on quickly from the impact that it might have had on him because they have a story to tell, so this is the angsty, rather dark, drama that I had going on in my head. Possibly it's a little more realistic that the idea that everything is fine after one apology and a kiss, but I don't claim to be a medical professional of any kind.
> 
> And somehow Team Flash got involved so now it's also a crossover, but Legends is basically always a crossover, even when it isn't.
> 
> Please take care if one of these trigger warnings affects you:  
> TW: Description of a suicide attempt, and not just the canon one.  
> TW: Mental health issues, including PTSD

* * *

 

“No doubt there was peace after this, but it was peace stained with blood.” Tacitus, Annals, 1.10

*

“Do not misquote Tacitus to me. I knew him well.” Vandal Savage, Legends of Tomorrow, S1x14

*

* * *

 

The cry of anguish could be heard throughout the Waverider. Sara had always known that getting Rip back to his old self wasn’t going to be easy and would probably be hard on everyone in ways that she hadn’t even considered yet. In fact it was worse than that, because she hadn’t thought about who would be the one to watch Rip’s awareness of what had happened return, piece by awful piece.

He was strapped down on the chair furthest from the door in the Med Bay so that they could perform the required checks after the procedure to restore his memories. He’d passed out shortly after Martin had informed him that he was home. Sara had decided that she wanted to make sure that he definitely was back to his old self before they released him, and Jax had agreed that might be a good idea. Gideon had been monitoring his vital signs for any adverse reactions. The act of returning his memories had been as hard on his body as it was going to be on his mind. He’d been unconscious for hours, most likely due to exhaustion.

His eyes opened slowly, bloodshot and watery. He looked around the room, orienting himself. He took a shaky breath and noticed Sara sat at his side.

“Sara… what am I… Why…?” his voice clouded with puzzlement as he realised that he was tied down. Then he frowned, and Sara could see that his brain was putting together everything that had happened. He turned away from Sara as he clearly began to remember why he was here. He jerked against the restraints. Sara grabbed his hand, hoping that the human contact would ground him.

“No,” he murmured, with fearful realisation. He shook his head and Sara watched his heart rate rise. “No, no, no, no!” This time he didn’t just jerk against the restraints, he pulled against them with bone-breaking strength.

“Rip…” began Sara, but she couldn’t continue.

Rip cried out, yelled, with a deep-seated pain, and Sara didn’t know what to say or do. She didn’t know how to help him deal with this. He only stopped the scream because he’d run out of breath, and then he began to pull so hard on the restraints that she was worried he’d injure himself. If he’d had his full strength then he might have done so already by this point. He slammed himself back into the chair as he attempted to get more leverage, and the whole chair shook with the force of his thrashing. She moved to undo the restraints but stopped herself because she wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t hurt himself worse.

“Rip!” she shouted his name now, but he didn’t seem to hear it. She stood and put her hands on his shoulders. “Rip, please!” She could see that his eyes were wild and filled with pain.

“Gideon! We need something to calm him down,” said Sara, frantically.

“I am administering a light sedative,” said Gideon, in her frustratingly happy tone.

It took a few seconds but Rip’s movements slowed and his breathing eased. He turned his eyes back to Sara, and now she could see the tears in them.

“You should have let me die on the battlefield, Sara.”

Sara shook her head vehemently. “I couldn’t do that.”

“I killed you and felt _nothing_ ,” he said with anguish.

“I’m not dead, Rip,” replied Sara, as calmly as she could manage.

He shook his head frantically. “I lured you all into a trap and then attacked you. I shot you! I broke your neck!” He was having trouble even getting the words out as tears spilled down his cheeks. He seemed unbelievably tired. “I’m a traitor of the worst kind. I was your friend, your Captain, and I _hurt_ you. I deserve to be dead.”

Sara held his hand, refusing to let it go. “Thawne brainwashed you.”

“No, he altered my memories. That isn’t the same thing. I am that person who murdered, who threatened, who destroyed. Deep down that’s who I am and I can’t say that I won’t be that person again. You need to execute me, or at the very least lock me up forever.” He blinked tiredly at her.

“No,” said Sara, firmly. “That’s not happening. If our positions were reversed would you have left me to die, or locked me away? And you know how much blood I have in my past. When I went back to the League of Assassins, and forgot who I was, you didn’t leave me behind. You fought for me, and that’s what I’m going to do for you.”

“I don’t want you to fight for me,” replied Rip. “I’m not worth the effort.”

With that his eyes fell shut and he seemed to have fallen asleep.

“My apologies,” said Gideon. “It appears that the sedative worked better than intended. His general exhaustion meant that he was more susceptible than expected.”

Sara sighed, squeezing Rip’s hand one last time before she let it go.

“Apart from the exhaustion, is there anything else wrong with him?” she asked.

“No, Captain Lance. His brain waves have returned to their previous patterns and his wounds from the battle are healing well.”

“Yeah, his physical ones,” murmured Sara, she hung her head for a moment, put her elbows on the edge of the chair and rested her forehead on her linked hands as she took a deep breath. She found herself regarding Rip with worry and apprehension.

Professor Martin Stein entered the room, on his way to perform his regular check on Rip’s condition. He looked at Sara and noted her expression, correctly guessing the cause. “Did he wake up?”

Sara nodded. “He told me I should have killed him.” She couldn’t look at Martin to see how he took that news.

“He’s bound to be disturbed by what happened to him. They altered his mind, a fate that I wouldn’t have wished on my worst enemy, and for someone like Rip, well… Our Captain may have occasionally made some dubious decisions, but it was always because he thought he was doing the right thing. At heart, he’s a good man.” Martin put down the tablet that he had been carrying.

“Until he wasn’t,” said Sara. “Until Eobard Thawne made him into someone else.”

The professor sighed. “Yes. He took away what made him a good man, and I can only begin to imagine his inner turmoil over what he did whilst he wasn’t himself.”

“Any thoughts on what we should do with him?”

“You’re certain that he is back to his former self?”

Sara nodded. “You can’t fake that level of pain, and Gideon says that his brainwaves are back to normal.”

“Perhaps we should start by removing his restraints, then,” said Martin.

“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” said Sara. “I don’t think he’ll try to hurt us, but he might hurt himself. I know what it’s like to think you deserved to die.”

Martin let out a long, unhappy sigh. “We can’t keep him in restraints forever. That would just be further cruelty on our part after everything that he’s been through.”

“Then I guess we’ll just have to trust him,” said Sara.

“Agreed,” said Martin. “Let’s remove the restraints and then I can take over your vigil.”

Sara shook her head. “No, I’ll stay.” She got to her feet and began removing the restraints, noting that even though they were well padded, Rip’s skin was red where he’d pulled on them.

“You’ve had hardly any sleep. Are you sure that’s wise?”

“He’s my responsibility. I’m the Captain.” She glanced up at Martin. “You removed all of his codes from the system? He can’t use Gideon against us again?”

“No, Raymond and Jax were quite thorough. All of Captain Hunter’s authorisation has been revoked.”

“That’s not going to make him happy either,” said Sara. She yawned.

“If you’re not going to leave then perhaps you should at least get some sleep in the other available chair,” said Martin.

Sara considered Rip for a moment but he was well and truly asleep, and knowing that there were sedatives in his bloodstream, he probably would be for a while.

“Okay, if you insist, but wake me if it looks like he’s coming round again.”

She moved around to the other chair and lay down. The futuristic chair moulded the fabric to the contours of her body and was surprisingly comfortable.

“Of course,” replied Martin and took his position in Sara’s vacant seat. Sara closed her eyes and slept.

* * *

All Rip knew while he slept was that he was in extraordinary pain. It wasn’t physical pain, but in many ways, it was worse than merely corporeal hurt. His entire body ached from the violation of what had been done to him. There was no name for the feeling that he was experiencing in any language that Rip knew and he knew quite a number. It was a deep darkness, a hole that he had fallen in and now couldn’t climb out of. It wasn’t sadness, or anger, or shame, or guilt, or even self-loathing, but an amalgamation of all of those balled up together into a poisonous mixture that threatened to drown him in its hideous depths. He had no wish to wake up, but his body wouldn’t sleep forever.

Consciousness returned lethargically. He could feel the remains of the sedative that Gideon had given him still in his system, but it wasn’t enough to do much more than slow his waking. He groaned, disappointed that he had to open his eyes and face the world again. His eyelids unsealed and he blinked up at the ceiling of medbay. For a second he wondered why he was here, and then he remembered his first awakening and the reasons for this pain. He screwed his eyes shut and attempted to pull on the restraints, looking for any kind of feeling to ground himself with. The restraints were strangely absent though.

This time he opened his eyes in surprise and looked down at where his wrists should have been bound but weren’t.

“We removed the restraints,” said a voice, and when he turned his head, he found that Martin Stein was sat where Sara had been before. “Given that you’ve regained your memories we didn’t see the need for them anymore.”

“That was foolish,” replied Rip, tiredly. “You have very little proof that I’m back to my old self.”

“Well, if you’re not then I have a former member of the League of Assassins to protect me,” replied Martin, looking over to the other bed in the medbay. Rip was almost too tired to move his head to look in the same direction, but he did, focusing his eyes on Sara.

A memory flashed through his head of her lying on the bed that he was on now, vulnerable, injured and he reached down to put his hand on her neck. He closed his eyes and looked away quickly.

“You need to put me in the cells.” Rip said the words but it hardly sounded like his own voice. “I should be executed for what I did. Sara deserves justice… so does Doctor Mid-nite.”

Jefferson Jackson picked this moment to walk in. “So you’re awake…” he said, crossing his arms over his chest and surveying Rip.

Jax didn’t sound at all happy and why would he be? Rip took a deep breath, before turning to his new visitor.

“Yes, Mr Jackson, I am. I was just explaining to Professor Stein that you should arrange for my immediate execution for my crimes against this crew. I fully confess my responsibility for everything that I did from my attempted murder of Miss Lance to my successful murder of Doctor Mid-nite. I also interfered with the timeline and put the entire crew in danger by working with Darhk and Merlyn.”

Martin was looking somewhat taken aback. Sara stirred in her sleep.

Jax just shook his head. “That wasn’t you.”

“I assure you it was. If I was Darhk, or Merlyn, or Thawne then you wouldn’t hesitate to kill me.”

Martin was already shaking his head, but it was Jax who answered.

“I know this is going to be hard and we have stuff to work through, but I don’t want you dead. None of us want that. We didn’t go to all of this trouble to bring you back here alive and poke around in your head so that we could kill you. You should know us better than that.” Jax was looking even more angry now.

Rip took another deep breath. Jax was setting off a stream of memories, including the moment he tried to kill him in the dark corridors of the Waverider.

“And what exactly are you planning to tell Miss Jiwe? I killed her friend and she will expect justice for him.”

“Then we take it from Darhk, Merlyn and Thawne,” said Sara’s voice. Rip could see that she was now sitting up on the other chair. “They’re the ones who get the blame for all of this. I don’t care what you think, you’re not responsible for them altering your memories and turning you against us.”

“No, but I still did those things. I tried to murder you, Sara! I remember it. It was me and no one else standing there with their hand around your neck!” Rip’s breathing was speeding up as more memories repeated in his mind. He shook his head trying to loosen them, putting a hand to his forehead. “I could have fought harder. I should have stopped myself, broken out of their prison.” His heart was racing and he wasn’t sure how to get it under control. He felt removed from reality, like none of this was real.

Gideon stopped any further discussion. “I suggest that you discontinue this conversation. Captain Hunter is experiencing the early signs of a panic attack.”

Rip looked up at the ceiling wearily, his breathing faster than was normal. “That makes me feel so much better, Gideon.” But he knew she was right. He pushed himself up in the chair so that he was more upright and tried to slow his breathing. No one stopped him from moving or tried to help him, even though it clearly wasn’t easy for him. He looked over at Sara.

“If you’re not going to lock me in the cells then I’d suggest that you at least confine me to my quarters.”

Sara gave him an appraising look, and she hopped down from the couch.

“I know you want to be alone,” she said, getting closer to her former Captain. “I know you feel like you already are, but you’re not.”

“We’re all alone, Miss Lance,” replied Rip, and he really did feel it in that moment.

“Gideon, is it safe for Captain Hunter to leave the medbay?” asked Martin.

“Yes, Professor Stein, although I would recommend continued monitoring and a daily check-up in the medbay for the next seven days to ensure that there have been no undetected ill effects from the restoration of his memories.”

“Noted, Gideon. We’ll ensure that happens,” replied Martin.

“I’ll escort you to your quarters,” said Sara.

Rip now felt weirdly nervous. He shuffled forwards on the chair and then put his feet on the floor. He still felt shaky but was stable enough to walk. He somewhat reluctantly let go of the chair and followed Sara out of medbay and towards his quarters. He looked around him as he walked down the corridors, trying to remind himself that this was real and he was no longer trapped in his own brain.

Sara walked beside him and when he wobbled, she steadied him.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go back to the medbay?”

“No,” he said, quickly. “Just… just get me to my quarters.” His memories were overwhelming him and he needed time to process them.

He pretended that he wasn’t being supported by Sara as they walked the last few steps to his quarters. He entered the room and had to stop for a moment to let the realisation that he really was home fully sink in.

“You okay?” asked Sara, with concern.

“Not really,” replied Rip. “The bed, I think.”

Sara helped him to the corner of the room where his bed was and he sat down heavily.

“Better?”

Rip gave a slight nod, trying desperately not to let his memories take over. He didn’t want Sara to see this weakness.

“I think I’d like to be on my own now. Quite frankly, I’m worn out and I don’t feel like being sociable.”

Sara looked at him for several long seconds. “Okay, but I’ll be back later to check on you.”

“I don’t doubt,” said Rip, dryly. He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes until he heard Sara’s footsteps move out of the room and the door shut behind her. He blinked up at the ceiling.

“Gideon, did they revoke all my codes?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Good.”

He wasn’t sure how long he lay there, but at some point Martin brought him a tray with dinner on it. He tried to engage Rip in conversation of some kind, but Rip barely even noticed what he said. He couldn’t bring himself to do more than pick at the food. He still felt tired, worn through to his bones, and what he did eat didn’t sit well in his stomach. He went back to the bed and tried to sleep without much success. His mind dredged up the dark corridors of his mental prison and he felt once again the loneliness and fear of being trapped in his own head. He woke up sweating, breathing hard and with his heart racing.

He knew this ship wasn’t the same one that had been his mental prison, but everything felt off. He couldn’t seem to ground himself in reality. He kept expecting one of the evil team to walk through the doors and drag him to the cells. This was a nightmare that was going to be hard to shake, and even that wasn’t as bad as the things that he’d done in real life whilst his true self had been locked away.

He lost track of time, but he knew from the day night cycle of lighting that Gideon provided that days passed. He couldn’t sleep because violent nightmares awaited him, and he couldn’t stay awake because his brain wouldn’t leave him alone. It kept reminding him of everything evil that he’d done with his twisted mind. In some ways he was as lost as he’d been before Sara and Jax rescued him. Reality was difficult and seemed to fade into his dreams, and his dreams were turgid mirrors of the torture that he was putting himself through as he struggled to understand what had happened to himself. How could he have allowed Thawne to do this to him? As Sara had said: he was Rip Hunter, Captain of the Waverider. None of this should have been possible.

He was aware of people coming and going from his room. His team were concerned. They said words, words that he was certain were aimed at him, but he was lost in his head. He was reliving the images of Sara lying dead on the couch in medbay, the dead knights on the battlefield of Camelot, the dead American soldiers in 1776, and Doctor Mid-Nite bleeding out on the floor. Rip Hunter had never been a killer. He’d killed in self-defence or to save others but that wasn’t the same thing. Thawne had turned him into a murderer.

He vaguely registered people bringing him food and persuading him to eat it. He tried his hardest to do as they asked, but never managed much. He didn’t bathe or shave, and barely managed to make it out of bed most days. He just stared at the walls and willed himself to stop existing.

At some point, without knowing why, he realised that this was not something that he could continue forever. He put his head in his hands.

“They’re never going to be able to forgive me. I can’t even forgive myself.”

“I think you underestimate them,” replied Gideon, even though Rip hadn’t said her name.

“It doesn’t matter anyway.”

Rip pushed himself to his feet and staggered to his desk. He pulled open the top drawer and felt underneath the desk top. He removed a wickedly sharp dagger, one of several weapons that he’d hidden in his quarters. He’d never intended it for this purpose, it was supposed to be for defence, but one of the futures that he could never predict was his own.

“I’m sorry, Gideon, for everything that I’ve put you through,” he said, and put the knife to his throat. He swallowed, took a deep breath and pressed the blade into his skin, drawing a trickle of blood. He could feel tears in his eyes again but there was only his ship to see them.

“Forcing me to disable the ship… or our kiss?” asked the AI.

The tip of the knife stopped, mid cut. “How did you…?”

“If it’s the latter, I rather enjoyed it.”

It took him a moment to parse that and understand. “As did I, Gideon, as did I.”

A spot of blood dripped onto the desk, and he found himself unable to move as he considered this. It was bright red and reminded him of the hole in Sara’s stomach. He was so deep in thought that he was surprised by the knife being grabbed from his fingers by someone considerably stronger than he was. The smell of burnt wood and ash gave away that it was Mick Rory before Rip even heard his voice.

“Idiot,” growled the intruder. The knife clattered to the ground.

Rip found himself dazed by the sudden movement, as Mick pulled the chair around to face him. He grabbed the collar of Rip’s t-shirt and held it away from the wound, examining the damage.

“Well, at least you didn’t get far. Still, this is a new level of stupid, even for you,” said Mick.

“Kill me,” said Rip, simply. “Pick up the knife and stab me. I tried to kill your Captain and I got you captured by the British, knowing that they would probably execute you. I wanted you dead, Mr Rory. I wanted you all dead. So, kill me, because I could just as easily put you all in danger again.”

His eyes met Mick’s and he saw the fire behind them. Mick was angry and that usually led to bad things happening. Hopefully this time it would play into Rip’s hands and Mick would carry out his request.

Mick bent down and picked up the knife, keeping his hand on Rip’s collar.

“No,” said Mick, bluntly, and threw the knife, rather expertly, into the waste paper basket by Rip’s desk. It was now out of easy reach of both of them and Mick still looked very angry.

Sara came running into the room just in time to see the knife land in the bin. “What’s going on? Gideon said I should…” She stopped dead at the sight before her.

“Rip here tried to cut his own throat,” said Mick, with characteristic frankness. It was at this point that Rip realised that Mick was angry because of his attempt to take his own life, and for no other reason. This left him momentarily speechless.

Sara stormed over to Rip and pushed Mick out of the way, then tilted Rip’s neck to get a better look at the wound. Rip just let her, feeling more tired than ever.

“Of all the dumb, idiotic things to do,” Sara chastised. “Watch him,” she directed to Mick, who nodded in acknowledgement. “Gideon, is there a first aid box in here?”

“Yes, it is located in the bathroom,” replied the AI.

“Thank you, Gideon.” Sara went into the bathroom and returned with the first aid kit and Rip’s razorblades from his shaving kit, which hadn’t seen the light of day much since he’d decided to grow a beard several years ago.

She set out the first aid kit on the desk and tended to the cut on his neck expertly, which wasn’t really a surprise but somehow still was. The idea that Sara could be gentle was perhaps his stumbling block, but again he should have known better. Assassins tended to need finesse as well as power. She finished her ministrations by taping a dressing over the wound, and then proceeded to tidy away the first aid kit.

When that was done, she looked around the room, located a medium-sized, leather covered chest, which she opened and upended the contents onto the couch. If Rip had been feeling himself then he’d have protested, but he couldn’t summon the energy. She retrieved the bloodied knife from the bin and dropped it into the box. The razorblades followed the knife, along with the painkillers from the first aid kit.

She looked at Rip sternly.

“You’re going to tell me where every single knife, sword, razorblade and dagger is. Then we’ll move on to projectile weapons and anything else that you could use to hurt yourself.” Sara also looked angry now, in fact livid might be a better description. “So where do I start?”

Rip looked at her now with annoyance, and folded his arms across his chest. It would have been more defiant if he hadn’t been shaking with the adrenaline come down and the effects of very little food and less sleep. He knew that he must look terrible.

Mick gave him a shove on the shoulder. “The lady asked you to tell her where your weapons are.”

One look at Mick was enough to realise that he wasn’t getting out of this.

“Katana, wakizashi and throwing stars under the sofa,” he mumbled. Sara moved off to retrieve them, dropping them into the chest. “Set of throwing knives in the copy of H.G. Wells’ Time Machine on the bookcase.” Again, Sara said nothing, opened the book and emptied the contents into the chest. “Guns are in the cupboard.” He indicated the cupboard with a wave of his hand, and turned away because he had no idea how to process the emotions that he was feeling.

He had an extensive gun collection, mostly from the American West era but with some from further into the future, including his favourite laser pistol, and at least this time Sara was more careful in transferring them to the box. She knew a prized possession when she saw one and Rip had kept his guns well.

“Anything else?” asked Sara.

Rip shook his head.

“Perhaps you are forgetting your boot knife, Captain,” said Gideon, helpfully. “In the Captain’s wardrobe, Captain Lance.”

He hadn’t forgotten and he was certain that everyone, including Gideon, was aware of that. Sara gave him a disappointed look and moved to the closet where he kept his everyday clothes. She came out with his boot knife and a set of clean clothes.

Rip was leaning forwards in the desk chair by this point, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He was feeling both defeated and disheartened, as Mick kept a close eye on him.

“Rip, you need a shower and a change of clothes,” said Sara. “Black isn’t your colour.” She placed the pile of fresh clothes on the bed.

“I’d rather get some sleep,” replied Rip.

“Do as you’re told for once,” said Mick. “You stink. Take a shower.”

Rip opened his mouth to protest, but had to admit that he hadn’t washed for a while and his body odour was somewhat ripe. He sighed, grabbed the clothes and wearily headed for the bathroom.

“Don’t lock the door,” said Sara.

He half turned back towards her, intending to protest, but instead he just nodded and continued his walk towards the bathroom. Nothing really mattered, why should he protest.

He was so very tired, even more so now that he’d been before. Sleep wasn’t something that he’d found easy. He had a flash of his prison cell on the Waverider in his mind and the feelings of fear and loneliness were almost overwhelming. He put a hand out to the wall to steady himself, but made it into the bathroom and turned on the water, waiting for it to heat up as he undressed. It was a standard ritual, but usually done on autopilot, rapidly, whereas now every action felt like he was moving through treacle. He felt slow and useless, and when he stepped under the shower, he pretended that the water on his face was only the drips of the shower. It was a nice lie. Tears never solved anything, after all.


	2. The Little Matter of Free Will

As soon as Rip had stepped into the bathroom and they heard the shower turn on, Sara turned to Mick.

“He tried to commit suicide.” It was a statement, but she was also looking for confirmation.

“Yeah, the Legion of Doom messed with his head good,” replied Mick.

“Did Gideon tell you to get here?”

Mick nodded. “She told me he had a knife and normally I’d have asked “so what?” but given how screwed up he was, I didn’t think it was a good idea for him to be playing with sharp things.”

“Yeah, you probably saved his life. I’m not sure that I’d have made it in time.”

“Even idiots get lucky occasionally,” said Mick, darkly.

Sara got the distinct impression that Mick didn’t believe suicide was a valid course of action under any circumstances. Whilst she was an assassin, it had been positively encouraged if you failed to kill a target or were too badly injured to get home. There was honour in suicide under the right circumstances in the League of Assassins, but that was the League and she wasn’t one of their number any longer. She doubted that Rip would have agreed with them if he’d been his old self.

“Gideon, we got all the weapons, right?” asked Sarah.

“Yes, Captain Lance, or at least all the ones of which I am aware. The Captain is quite resourceful.”

“Okay, I guess that’ll have to do. Could you ask Ray and Martin to come to Rip’s quarters?”

“Of course, Captain Lance,” said Gideon.

“What do we need them for?” asked Mick. He was in the process of pulling out Rip’s good whiskey and taking a swig from the decanter that it was in.

“We need them because Rip needs help and I have no idea how we do that,” she replied, taking a seat on Rip’s sofa. “Removing his weapons will remove the obvious temptation, but we can’t keep him wrapped up in cotton wool or locked in his quarters forever. We need him back to his old self.”

“This is his old self,” ground out Mick.

“No, it isn’t,” replied Sara, with a touch of anger creeping into her voice. “He can’t live like this. He’s sleeping twenty hours a day, barely eating, and we had to tell him to take a shower. He’s Rip Hunter, god damn it.”

Ray stepped into the room. “Did I come at a bad time?” he asked sheepishly. A step behind him was Martin.

Sara shook her head. “No, have a seat. We need to talk about Rip.”

“Where is he?” asked Martin, looking around the room, which had been kept exactly as it was, ready for the Captain’s return.

“In the shower,” said Sara. She took a deep breath. “There’s no easy way to say this. Mick caught him with a knife… he was thinking about…”

“More than thinking about,” interrupted Mick.

“Okay, he’d cut himself, but he was definitely hesitating,” said Sara. The cut wasn’t one which had been made by a steady hand with force, it was tentative and they were hesitation marks where he’d cut and stopped. That might be the only thing that they had going for them here – Rip hadn’t been sure about killing himself or he’d have been faster and Mick wouldn’t have been able to arrive in time. There was no guarantee that this wouldn’t change though.

“Are you saying that Rip was going to kill himself?” asked Ray, with obvious surprise and some disbelief.

“Yes, I’m afraid she is Dr Palmer,” said Martin, showing no sign of taking the offered seat. He removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Why? I don’t understand,” said Ray. “He got his memories back didn’t he? He’s the old Rip that we all know and, er, love.” He glanced at Mick as he finished the saying that he clearly hadn’t thought through.

Mick smirked and drank some more whiskey.

“Because he remembers everything, including the bits where he wasn’t himself,” Sara pointed out.

“Oh,” said Ray, in a small voice. She could see the realisation dawning.

“I should have anticipated this,” said Martin. “We should have placed him on some kind of suicide watch.”

“Yeah, you’d know, Doc,” said Mick, who apparently still thought Doctor meant Medical Doctor. “But you can fix _his_ brain just like you fixed mine.”

Sara raised a questioning eyebrow in Martin’s direction.

Martin shook his head, ignoring Sara’s look. “If only it were as easy as your case, Mr Rory. No, I’m definitely not qualified to deal with suicidal ideation or the probable PTSD that he has. We’re going to need a trained medical professional.”

Sara sighed. “Yeah, that’ll be easy. We can just book him a session at the shrink next time we’re in 2016, and then watch as they lock him up when he tries to explain what happened.”

“Maybe he could lie about how it happened? We could come up with a cover story,” suggested Ray.

“No, the little I do know about psychology and therapy would indicate that telling the truth is of the utmost importance,” said Martin. “We’ll need someone who already knows what Captain Hunter does and can be briefed on what happened to him.” He thought for a second and then clearly came to some realisation as he threw his hands up in the air. “How could I have been so stupid? We have the perfect person. Dr Caitlin Snow from Team Flash.”

“She’s an MD, isn’t she?” asked Ray.

“Yes, but an extremely resourceful and adaptive one. She had to learn a completely new biology to treat Barry Allen and I’m sure she’s had at least some training in psychology. I think she’s probably our best, and perhaps only, option.”

Sara shrugged. “I agree. We really don’t have much choice. Do you think she’ll agree to treat him?”

“I can’t see any reason why she wouldn’t,” said Martin. “She helped me immensely after Ronald’s death.”

“Okay, well at least that’s some kind of plan. Gideon, would you please plot us a course for Central City in 2016, preferably at a suitable point when Team Flash are between meta-human threats.”

“Certainly, Captain.”

Then it occurred to her that the water was still running in the shower. “He’s been in there a while,” she said, “I think we should check on him.”

“You mean you want me to check on him,” said Mick correctly discerning the actual meaning of her words. He put down the whiskey and headed for the bathroom and pulled the door open without knocking.

There was the sound of water being shut off and Mick’s gravelly voice issuing orders that Rip clearly didn’t want to obey. A few minutes later, Rip and Mick emerged with Rip shivering but at least clothed.

“Water had gone cold,” said Mick, with disapproval. Mick didn’t enjoy the cold.

Sara couldn’t help but sigh, however she guided Rip to the couch and pulled a blanket out of one of the cupboards.

“When did my audience double in size?” asked Rip, between shivers as he settled, slowly onto the couch, pushing himself into the corner furthest away from the door.

“I’m just keeping your crew informed,” said Sara, putting the blanket over him. “We’re taking you to 2016.”

“Really and why would you be doing that? Don’t we have a spear fragment to find?”

“Yes, but not while you’re like this,” said Sara.

“And exactly how is a trip to 2016 going to help me? You can’t undo what Eobard Thawne did to me.”

“Of course not,” said Martin. “But we can help you to deal with the aftermath.”

“You’ve got a magic wand that can make everything better stashed in 2016, have you?” Rip asked, sarcasm dripping.

“That would be _really_ cool…” started Ray before realising that it might not be the most helpful thing to say. “Sorry. No magic wand, just some friends who’d be happy to help you.”

“Oh good, I’m sure whichever of Teams Arrow and Flash you have in mind will be fantastic at dealing with the very real problem of my being a murderer,” said Rip, with further sarcasm. He pulled the blanket around his shoulders.

“It wasn’t you, Rip,” said Sara.

“Then why do I have memories of doing it?”

“Your body, not your mind,” Sara snapped back, crossly.

“You have no idea what it was like,” he replied, equally annoyed.

“No, but I have wrestled with my blood lust and the things that I did as an assassin. I came out the other side, so I have some experience with being a murderer. And my being a killer didn’t stop you from recruiting me for this mission or persuading me that I could be more than an assassin. And I actually meant to kill those people.”

“That is entirely different. There is the little matter of free will,” replied Rip, bringing his legs up onto the couch, pulling his knees up and resting his forehead on them.

It reminded Sara rather too closely of how she’d found him in the cell in the mindscape. He seemed tired, and she didn’t think he’d really been anything else since he woke up in the Cognitive Intrusion chair.

“I’d like to be alone now, if I may,” said Rip.

“I guess you think we’re all idiots like you,” said Mick.

“You don’t get to be alone at the moment,” said Sara. “Not until we can trust you.”

Rip glanced up at them, before looking down again. “Very wise.”

That wasn’t at all what Sara had expected him to say, but she didn’t have time to ponder it further. “Okay, Mick, you’ve got the first shift. Rip… eat something, please. I know you’re struggling, but you’re just going to make yourself ill if you don’t.”

“I’m not hungry,” said Rip.

Sara sighed. He looked so miserable and the light in his eyes, which were usually so animated, was dull. “Fine, have it your way, maybe you’ll feel like eating later.”

Rip said nothing and just pulled the blanket closer around himself. Sara felt her heart break for him. But she grabbed the chest which was full of Rip’s weapons and carried it out of the room.

***

The Waverider landed in Central City around February in 2017 in the carpark of Star Labs, which was always empty since the particle accelerator explosion, and a useful place for them to land. Gideon had determined that this was the best time for them to arrive and they’d called ahead. Sara, Martin and Jax walked down the gangway, as the ship cloaked behind them. Cisco Ramon was waiting for them.

“Man, that never gets old,” said Cisco, with utter joy on his face. “So, what can we do for Team Legends?”

Martin answered. “We need to speak with Doctor Snow. It’s rather a delicate matter.”

Cisco frowned. “Ohhkay, she’s waiting in the lab. Is someone sick?” He indicated for them to follow him.

“Sort of,” said Jax. “Let’s wait until we’re all together before we explain.”

They walked down the familiar, long, concrete corridor, and into the cortex where Caitlin was sat at her computer working and Barry was running on his treadmill in the room next door. He slowed down as they entered the room and got off the treadmill, grabbing a towel to wipe away the sweat.

“Hey guys,” said Barry.

Caitlin turned around. “Hi Professor, Jax, Sara. It’s always good to see Team Legends.”

“I wish it was under better circumstances,” said Martin.

“What happened?” asked Barry.

“We got Rip back from the Legion of Doom,” said Jax.

“Legion of Doom?” asked Cisco.

“It’s a long story, but basically Damien Darhk and Malcolm Merlyn teamed up with Eobard Thawne and we call them the Legion of Doom,” Jax explained.

“It was Ray’s idea,” said Sara, with disapproval.

“I’d have given them a much better nickname,” said Cisco. When all eyes turned on him, he added “but that is not relevant right this moment.”

“They captured Rip and altered his memories to turn him against us,” said Sara.

“So you need our help to fix him?” asked Barry.

Sara shook her head. “No, we dealt with that part of the problem. We need to borrow Caitlin. Rip’s not well. He’s himself again… but he’s having a lot of trouble with what happened. He was locked in his mind… and I don’t really understand what he’s going through, but he’s hurting.” She couldn’t bring herself to discuss the exact details in front of everyone.

“It sounds like he’s suffering from PTSD,” said Caitlin. Barry was nodding. “But I’m not a psychiatrist. I took the required courses in medical school, but that was a while ago. I’m not sure that I’m the best person to help him.”

“The problem we face, Doctor Snow, is that there are no therapists for time travellers and if we try to take him to a standard medical practitioner, well, he’d have lie about what the cause of his difficulties was,” said Martin. “Whilst I admit to being poorly informed about the psychological professions, I know that you can’t expect it to help if you can’t tell the truth.”

Jax nodded. “We need someone who won’t just put him in a straight-jacket and throw him in an insane asylum if he mentions time travel and mind control.”

“And we’ll take partially qualified over not qualified at all,” said Sara.

Caitlin sighed. “I can see your problem. No one would believe all of the things that you guys have been through, and the foundation of psychotherapy is talking openly to work through past trauma.”

“So you’ll give it a go?” asked Sara.

“It sounds like I’m your only option. So, yes, I’ll do my best for Captain Hunter,” said Caitlin. “But we’re talking long term therapy here. One session won’t be enough. People can take years to get over their PTSD and some never do, but maybe if we start out with an intensive course of therapy we can go from there. Perhaps over a week or two.”

“How do you want to do this?” asked Barry. “Do you want Caitlin on the Waverider or to bring Rip here?”

“It might be best to get him off the ship,” said Sara.

“Yeah, given what we saw in his head, the ship doesn’t have good associations for him right now,” said Jax.

“In his head?” asked Barry, “Actually, no, forget I asked.”

“Good decision, man,” said Jax.

“Okay, I’ll get a bed ready for him here,” said Caitlin, getting to her feet and heading towards the infirmary area of the lab.

“We’d best inform the Captain then,” said Martin.

“I doubt he’s going to take this well,” said Jax.

“Go on,” said Sara. “We’ll need to pack him an overnight bag. I’ll be there to help, but I need to have a chat with Caitlin first.”

Martin hesitated, but Jax pulled him along.

“I’ll get back to my workout,” said Barry. “Call me if you need anything.”

“Thanks, man,” said Jax.

“Come on,” said Caitlin, “I’ll show you where Rip will be whilst he’s staying with us.”

Caitlin led the way to a small white room with a long, thin, window high up on one side and one clear glass wall with a door. It had a bed, bedside table with drawers, and some medical monitoring equipment in it, and led into the main infirmary area.

“We use it for observation and isolation. The bathroom is through that door there and the glass can be made opaque for privacy,” said Caitlin. She shut the door behind them after they were inside the room. “Okay, spill the beans. What did you need to talk about?”

“Rip tried to commit suicide. I didn’t want to say anything in front of Cisco and Barry, but he’s not just down, he really thinks he should be dead,” said Sara.

Caitlin took a deep breath. “That is very serious, Sara.”

“I know. I had to remove all the weapons from his quarters, but he hardly complained. It was like he felt he deserved it. And I’m worried he’ll keep trying until he succeeds.”

Caitlin nodded. “Okay, well I can enact suicide watch protocols and we’ll make sure that there’s always someone here to keep an eye on him. I’ll start on a treatment plan right away as well,” said Caitlin, tapping on a tablet. “Can you tell me exactly what happened to him? The more detail the better.”

Sara sat on the end of the bed. “This could take a while and really, Rip’s the only one with the full story.” She began with the nuclear weapon about to hit the ship, and she gave Caitlin every terrible detail of what Rip had done during the time his mind had been controlled by the Legion. She explained how they’d restored his memories and described the sad state that she’d found a fearful, terrified Rip in when she entered his mind. Caitlin was a good listener, which Sara thought boded well for her treatment of Rip.

Caitlin surprised her when she asked her next question though. “And how do you feel?”

“Me? I’m fine.”

“The man who tried to murder you is walking around on board your ship, and he’s a friend. That has to stir up some emotions,” she said.

Sara’s brow furrowed. “It’s definitely not the first time someone’s tried to kill me. It’s not even the first time that it was a friend. And I’ve been dead, there isn’t much else that can be done to me after that, to be honest. I don’t even remember Rip trying to strangle me or breaking my neck because I was already unconscious. I didn’t know it had happened until I woke up in the Waverider’s medbay and Martin was there looking very worried. Thank god for Gideon and her medical programs.”

Sara definitely did remember being strangled by Rip, but she’d had some time to process what had happened and she didn’t want to distract Caitlin from her primary patient. She’d just added a few more bad dreams to her already full supply, and she could deal with that on her own. They’d fade over time like all the others had.

“To be honest, Jax took it all hardest,” Sara continued. “Rip had been training him up on how to fix the Waverider and he’d sort of been mentoring him, then he had to watch as Rip killed me… He felt the betrayal hardest, even though he knew it wasn’t really Rip. He’s still having trouble with it all, but he won’t talk to me about it.”

Caitlin nodded. “Well, maybe he’d like to take advantage of my services whilst you’re here. It couldn’t hurt.”

“I’ll suggest it, but he can be pretty stubborn. I’m never sure if he gets that from Stein or if they’re both as bad as each other.”

“So I assume that you’re not giving Rip a choice?” asked Caitlin. “And he’s not going to be here exactly voluntarily.”

“I really doubt it, although I’d prefer it that way,” said Sara. “But he needs help and we can’t give it to him on the Waverider. I refuse to lock him in a cell, but I can tolerate this as our next best option.”

“It’s okay, I understand,” said Caitlin. “We put Barry in the pipeline cells once to stop him from doing something stupid, not that it helped much. It just made him mad when he got out, and then he went and did it anyway.”

Sara smiled. “I can only imagine.”

“I’ll tell you the whole story one day, but not when I’m expecting a patient and I have some reading to do before he gets here.”

“Caitlin,” said Sara, as the other woman put her hand on the door to leave, “We really appreciate you doing this. I know this isn’t going to be easy. We’ve turned up and asked something of you that’s going to be difficult and disrupt your team.”

Caitlin gave her a reassuring smile. “If our situations were reversed then you’d do the same for one of ours.”

Sara nodded in agreement. The Legends would always have Team Flash’s back when they needed them, whenever they needed them.

***

“Do you even have such a thing as a suitcase?” Jax asked a lethargic Rip.

“I’m not going,” replied Rip, as Jax pulled out the contents of cupboards and checked under the bed.

“Aha!” said Jax, producing a battered brown case that looked like it was from the 1920s from under Rip’s bed. “You’re going. Even if Mick has to knock you out and carry you.”

“You do realise that multiple blows to the head are dangerous and can result in permanent brain injury,” said Rip, from his position on the couch, where he was once again wrapped in a blanket and hugging his knees. “Given that Mr Rory has already clocked me on several occasions, further opportunities for him to hit me seem somewhat unnecessary and contrary to your stated objective of keeping me alive.”

“Maybe Grey can roofie you instead then,” said Jax, oblivious to Rip’s biting comments. “Like I said, you’re definitely going and Sara’s not going to take “no” for an answer.” Jax grabbed a stack of underwear from Rip’s closet and a couple of t-shirts, then shoved them into the case.

Rip sighed and rested his head on his knees. He closed his eyes and was once again not paying attention to what was happening around him.

Over the course of the day that it had taken for the Waverider to reach its destination, Rip had mostly slept, or tried to anyway. He had constant nightmares and they were definitely making it hard for him to rest. He hadn’t eaten and had barely drunk. Everyone was worried about him, including Gideon who had asked Jax to twice check that her temperature sensors in Rip’s quarters were functioning correctly. Jax understood why, it was because Rip always seemed to be wrapped in a blanket or shivering. The temperature felt fine to Jax, but clearly Rip was feeling the cold.

Jax had no idea how Sara was planning to get Rip off the Waverider without resorting to roofies or Mick’s fists, but he was looking forwards to witnessing the attempt. That being said, he was still concerned about their former Captain and his general lack of enthusiasm for anything. At least he hadn’t tried to hurt himself again, but that seemed to be because he was once more disengaging from everything that was happening around him.

Jax found what seemed to be a washbag and shoved Rip’s toothbrush in it with a few other bits and pieces that seemed like essential items from the bathroom. He dumped it into the case and considered how many pairs of pants Rip would need. Rip’s wardrobe didn’t hold a lot of variety, mostly white shirts, grey t-shirts and black pants. He even had six zippered jackets that were exactly the same. The only one-of-a-kind item was the tan duster that hung at one end of the closet.

“Dude, you need to get some new stuff to wear,” said Jax, as he grabbed a pair of boots.

Rip said nothing. Jax shook his head and tried to close the suitcase. He sat on the lid in the traditional manner and clicked it shut. The door opened and Sara entered.

“Is he packed?”

“Yeah, he’s got enough clothes for a few days,” said Jax.

“Come on, Rip. Time to go,” said Sara.

“I’m not going anywhere. This is _my_ ship,” said Rip, angrily. It was the most animated that he’d seen Rip since they got him back.

“And you’re not well. The Waverider will be here when you get back and I promise to take good care of her,” said Sara.

“That isn’t the point,” said Rip, sullenly. “You have no control over what could happen.”

Sara sat down on the sofa at the opposite end to Rip. She reached out a hand and took his. Rip didn’t protest, and Jax suddenly felt like he was watching a deeply personal moment, as Sara shuffled closer to Rip.

“Come on, it’s just for a week, two at most,” said Sara, which Jax knew to be a complete lie. Fixing Rip’s problems were going to take more than two weeks and Caitlin had made that clear from the start. However, he definitely wasn’t going to make this any harder than it already was by pointing that out.

“Team Flash are really great guys,” said Jax. “You’re going to love them.”

“I doubt that very much,” said Rip.

Sara got up from the couch and went over to the closet. She clearly knew what she was looking for and when Jax realised, he understood what she was doing. She took out the tan duster, Rip’s coat. His favourite coat. The one that was almost an extension of his body and he always looked smaller without it. She held it up by the shoulders, ready for him to put on.

“Come on, we don’t need you catching cold on top of everything else,” said Sara.

Jax could see in Rip’s eyes and by the way that his posture changed that he wanted to put on the coat, but something was stopping him.

“Put it away,” he said.

“You’re not going to wear it?” asked Jax.

Rip shook his head and shoved his blanket to one side. He planted his feet on the ground, went to the closet and took out one of the identical jackets and stiffly, put it on.

Sara rehung the coat without comment.

“It’ll be here when I get back,” said Rip, looking at Sara. Something passed between them, but Jax wasn’t privy to whatever that was. He suspected that Rip was meaning more than just his physical presence.

“It will,” said Sara.

“Right, Mr Jackson, if you would lead the way then we can get this over with,” said Rip, pulling himself up to his full height.

Jax didn’t say anything. He just grabbed the suitcase and did as Rip asked before he changed his mind.


	3. Tell Me What You're Thinking

Rip Hunter wasn’t exactly what Caitlin had expected, although she’d never met a former Time Master before, so she wasn’t sure why he wasn’t. He was young and quite handsome, bearded with sandy hair. He was thin, probably a little too thin, and didn’t make good eye contact. Jax and Sara had delivered him to STAR Labs, and she didn’t fail to pick up on the protective vibe that she got from the two Legends that accompanied their Captain. She was being entrusted with the care of someone who was important to them.

Rip was polite but subdued, he called her “Doctor Snow” and shook her hand when they were introduced. Then he stared at the floor, with his hands in his pockets, looking like this was the last place on Earth he wanted to be.

“Come on, I’ll show you to your room,” said Caitlin, “I’m afraid it’s not exactly homely, but I promise you the bed is pretty comfortable. I’ve tested it myself after a long night in the lab.”

“I’m sure it will be fine, Doctor Snow,” replied Rip, quietly. He turned to his team mates. “I seem to be in safe hands so you might as well get back to the Waverider. You need to get back to work.”

Sara gave him a sad smile and then a rather unexpected hug. Rip looked completely taken aback and entirely unaware of how he should deal with it. The Legends departed and Rip looked even more lost than before, standing in the middle of the cortex, alone and a bit of a forlorn figure.

“This way,” said Caitlin, and Rip followed her.

Cisco was waiting for them in the room. “Oh hey, sorry, just finishing setting up the monitors. I’ll be out of your way in a moment.”

“This is Cisco Ramon,” said Caitlin.

“Mr Ramon,” said Rip, with a dip of his head.

“Cisco is fine. Hey, that’s an amazing ship, the Waverider. I got to take a ride in her when the Dominators attacked.”

“Did you?” asked Rip, with a little surprise. He clearly hadn’t been filled in on what his team had been up to without him.

Cisco nodded. “Yeah, it was amazing. Hey, maybe you could tell me some more about it. Felicity and I were trying to work out what the propulsion method was.”

“Ah, I can’t actually tell you that because I’d risk causing a temporal aberration. You have my apologies on that front,” said Rip, looking around the room.

“Really? Not even a few hints?” asked Cisco.

“I’m afraid not,” said Rip.

“How about…”

“Cisco,” interrupted Caitlin, with the suggestion of exasperation behind her words. “Captain Hunter is our guest and doesn’t need to be grilled about his space ship, or time ship, or whatever it is.”

“Both, actually,” added Rip, still not making eye contact.

“That is so cool,” said Cisco.

Rip smiled for the first time since he’d arrived. “Yes, I suppose it is. She’s been my ship for over a decade.”

“Awesome,” said Cisco. Caitlin rolled her eyes.

“Okay, Cisco, enough geeking out. I’m pretty sure that you have other things to be doing and I expect Captain Hunter would like to get settled in.”

Rip gave a slight nod, but didn’t look up.

“Fine, I’ll have to catch up with you later,” said Cisco, and disappeared to start on his next task.

“Sorry about that,” said Caitlin.

“Don’t be,” said Rip, “his enthusiasm is very gratifying.”

Caitlin reached into her pocket and produced a silver bracelet, which fed telemetry to the medical monitors. It was one of Cisco’s latest devices.

“Right, if you could just put that on your wrist for me…” she said handing Rip the bracelet.

“Er, why?” he asked, looking at it suspiciously.

“It’s a monitoring device. It keeps a record of your heartbeat, respiration, pulse, blood pressure... That sort of thing.” She gave a half shrug, as if this was a completely normal thing to ask someone.

“No, why do you need to monitor those things? My problem isn’t physical.” Rip didn’t seem at all enthusiastic.

“We’re just keeping an eye on your general health. The mental can impact the physical in all sorts of ways, and I’m a little concerned that you’re underweight. Sara said you hadn’t been eating much,” replied Caitlin.

“Did she, now?” said Rip, with annoyance. He sighed and snapped the bracelet around his wrist. Rip’s blood pressure and pulse were now displayed on the monitor behind the bed, which was exactly how she’d asked Cisco to set it up for her. She noted that Rip’s pulse was faster than she’d have considered normal and his blood pressure was on the high side. She made a mental note of that as something to keep an eye on.

“Let me help you with your suitcase,” said Caitlin, picking up the rather stylish, vintage item and putting it on the bed. “There’s a cupboard here for your personal things and clothes.”

“Thank you,” said Rip. He moved towards the suitcase and then paused, seeming to think before he turned towards Caitlin. “You’ll have to forgive me if I ask foolish questions, I have to confess to never having been in a situation like this before. Am I confined to this room?”

Caitlin couldn’t help but feel a little badly about her answer. “For the moment, but we’ll see how you do. I’ll find you some entertainment so you don’t get bored, and we’ve got a fair bit of work to do before your team return.”

“I assume there are also cameras,” said Rip.

“Yes, sorry about that, but they’re for your safety. There’s also a microphone that will pick up your voice, so just shout if you need something.”

Rip sighed and undid the catches on his suitcase.

“I’ll leave you to get unpacked,” said Caitlin.

“Thank you, Doctor Snow,” said Rip, but he didn’t look at her and he didn’t start to take things out of the case. He just leant forwards with his hands on the bed.

Caitlin felt like she should hug him, but she needed some distance if she was to maintain her professionality on this case. It was bad enough that she was treating someone who was important to some good friends of hers, without her getting further emotionally invested as well.

“Okay, I’ll be back in about half an hour to have our first therapy session,” said Caitlin.

Rip gave her a curt nod to show that he’d heard her, but didn’t say anything else. She stopped herself from sighing at his response, and left her patient to his lack of unpacking. This was not going to be easy and she and Rip had a great deal of work ahead of them.

***

Rip had spent several minutes just standing there, with his hands on the bed whilst he got a handle on his emotions. He never seemed to be allowed a moment where he felt normal, he was either drowning in a sea of seething guilt, self-hatred and depression, or unable to summon even the slightest bit of enthusiasm to do anything. He moved slowly, he thought slowly, the world hurt every second he was awake.

STAR Labs with its futuristic décor had reminded him of the year 3000, where he’d murdered Doctor Mid-Nite, a man he’d called at least a valued colleague, if not a friend. A tear dropped onto the bed and he hadn’t even realised that he was crying until that point. Tears came easily at the moment which was unusual because there were only two people he’d ever really cried over. He scrubbed at his eyes, trying to persuade the tears to stop quickly. He didn’t need Team Flash witnessing him like this.

He began moving his clothes from his case to the cupboard that Doctor Snow had indicated, just to give himself a distraction. He hadn’t paid a lot of attention to what Jax had packed for him but it looked like about a week’s worth of clothes, and what he’d normally wear whilst on the ship. With that done, there wasn’t much else to do except wait for Doctor Snow. He sat down on the bed and fixed his eyes on the floor, trying to push the unwanted thoughts out of his head without much success.

Rip hated cells, and this was basically a rather nice cell with a surprisingly comfy bed and en suite bathroom. To be fair, he suspected that most people hated being put in cells, but he’d seen a lot of them recently. There was never any privacy and here one of the walls was made of toughened glass of some description, so this was no exception. Out of curiosity he tried to see if the door would open, but it was locked. So much for Sara saying that she wouldn’t lock him up. He supposed that this was to help him, not punish him, but it didn’t feel very helpful right now.

Although, quite frankly, he agreed that he shouldn’t be allowed out, but not for the reasons they were actually locking him in. He could see that on the other side of the glass was a lab with lots of dangerous pointed objects and probably chemicals. That’s what they were protecting him from, the temptation to try to end everything again, and it was a huge temptation. If he could have got to any of those things then even he wasn’t sure what he’d do.

He went back to sitting on the bed, feeling small and alone. He was jerked out of his reverie by a knock on the door. Doctor Snow had returned and was holding a tablet, and what looked like a pad of paper, a book and some crayons.

“Hi again,” she said, “Can I come in?”

Rip was taken aback. “It’s your accommodation.”

“And yours whilst you’re here. Unless there’s an emergency, I’m not going to come in unless you invite me.”

“Ah,” said Rip. “You’re allowing me to control my immediate environment. I see you’ve read your PTSD manual.”

“And it’s just basic human politeness,” said Caitlin.

“Oh,” said Rip, feeling a little confused. “Of course, come in.”

“So, you know something about PTSD treatment?” asked Caitlin, bringing a chair with her that she set down beside the bed and then sat in.

“Well, the Time Masters were aware when they sent out their agents that such things were always a risk. They explained the signs and symptoms, along with some basics of treatment and alleviation of symptoms. Not that they ever took it seriously when it was reported, we were supposed to be able to deal with such things,” said Rip. “Which is pretty much how I know that I don’t have it.”

Caitlin raised an eyebrow. “And what did the Time Masters say about self-diagnosis of mental health conditions?”

“Not very much,” replied Rip.

“Hmm, I’m not sure that I’ve got much respect for them then,” replied Caitlin.

“The feeling is entirely mutual,” said Rip, and stopped himself from adding that he felt things towards the Time Masters that went considerably further than a lack of respect.

“In which case, you won’t mind if I assess you myself, and then give you my diagnosis,” said Caitlin.

Rip regarded her for a moment before he answered. “Whatever diagnosis you give doesn’t really matter. You can’t undo what Thawne did to me, and I can’t undo what I did while I was his puppet.”

Rip felt his breathing increase, and his fists clenched, grabbing a handful of the blanket that he was sat on. He did not need to lose control in front of Doctor Snow.

“No,” said Caitlin. Her eyes were soft and held a deep compassion. “I can’t do that, but I can help you work though what happened and come out the other side.”

“I really doubt that,” said Rip, pulling his knees up to his chest and putting his arms around them. He felt he would fly apart if he didn’t. He need to feel compact and anchored, but nothing seemed to work right now. He was already reliving the moment he snapped Sara’s neck. He put his forehead on his knees.

“Rip, tell me what you’re thinking,” said Caitlin. He could hear the chair being pushed back as she stood up and came closer to him.

“I’m thinking… I’m thinking that I killed Sara with my bare hands. I can see it in my mind, clearly, and it was only a miracle that brought her back. I didn’t feel anything for her. If I’d had my way, she’d be dead now,” said Rip, spitting out the words and struggling with each one. “I’d have killed them all if I could have. I set the ship to self-destruct. I even used a barbaric mind-control device to get King Arthur and his men to attack them. I allied myself with their enemies. I’m a murderer several times over.”

He felt Caitlin put a hand on his arm but he shrugged it off. He didn’t deserve her comfort.

“Sara…” he started but he had to compose himself enough to get the words out. “Sara should have killed me when she had the chance.” His heart was beating too quickly and his breathing was quick gasps of air.

“Rip, I need you to take some deep breaths for me. You need to slow your breathing.”

Rip shook his head. He couldn’t right now. He felt like his heart would beat right out of his chest and he could see himself choking Sara. He was crying again. Big wet drops were welling out of his eyes and rolling down his cheeks without his permission.

“Rip, look at me,” said Caitlin, and again he shook his head. “Rip, lift up your head and look at me.”

Rip had to admit that she was persistent and her tone was more forthright this time. He raised his head and realised that he was feeling dizzy now.

“Okay, I’m going to breathe and you’re going to follow me,” she said, and she took a long, slow deep breath, and then let it out equally slowly.

Rip tried to emulate her, because even though he wanted to be stubborn and let the panic take him, something about Caitlin made him reluctant to ignore her. His first attempt was shaky and dissolved into rapid breathing again quickly.

“Good,” said Caitlin, even at his half-hearted attempt. “Keep trying, it’ll get easier.” She resumed her slow, long breath in for him to copy.

He tried again, and managed to hold it for slightly longer and again and again, until he was almost breathing normally.

“What do you like to do in your spare time?” asked Caitlin. The question seemed to come out of the blue.

“Er, I don’t know… I used to like listening music, and reading. I don’t get much spare time,” he said, his voice wavering.

Caitlin grabbed a blanket from the end of the bed and wrapped it around Rip, who realised that he was shivering now that he was calm. Adrenalin was a fickle thing that took as much as it gave, so now he was feeling slightly sick and cold as it left his body. Caitlin didn’t seem at all surprised by the shivering.

“Maybe you can give me a list of the music you like and some books you’d be interested in,” said Caitlin.

Rip gave a cautious nod.

“Okay, just focus on that for a moment. Put together the list in your head. Five pieces of music, anything you want, and five books. You don’t need to tell me what they are.”

Rip looked at Caitlin with puzzlement, but as he began to think through the list he realised that she was removing him from one set of memories and onto a distraction.

“I’m guessing you’re pretty tired after that,” said Caitlin, sitting sideways on the bed. “Panic attacks can be very draining, so I won’t keep going for much longer. One of the things we’ll do tomorrow is go through some techniques to help you calm down and prevent them, okay?”

Again, Rip nodded, not trusting his shaky voice.

“Anxiety is totally normal after trauma, and there are lots of techniques that we can try that really help,” Caitlin continued.

 “It’s not a good sign, is it?” he asked.

“What isn’t?”

“Five minutes into our first session and I have a panic attack,” said Rip, in disappointment.

“It’s quite common,” said Caitlin. “As soon as you actually start telling someone your problems, you have to get them out into the light of day and examine them. Sometimes that can be quite frightening and given what you were thinking about, I’m not at all surprised that was your reaction.”

“So what do we do?” asked Rip.

“We take it one step at a time and we keep talking until they don’t seem so frightening,” said Caitlin.

“Nothing you or I can say will alter the fact that I’m a murderer,” said Rip.

“You’re not a murderer, Rip,” said Caitlin. “You were forced to kill and that isn’t the same thing at all. You had no control over what you were doing.”

“I was still there, though. I could have fought harder, stopped myself.”

“How do you know that?” asked Caitlin. “From what Sara said, they altered your memories, changed your personality, and turned you into someone that you weren’t. How does anyone fight against that? Your own brain was giving you faulty information.”

Rip wished he could believe her, but he didn’t. Rip Hunter didn’t let other people control him. He shook his head, and his reaction was met with a sad smile from Caitlin, as if she’d been expecting it. Perhaps she had.

“You were right about something though. You don’t have PTSD,” said Caitlin. “What you have is ASR – Acute Stress Reaction. If it doesn’t improve after three more weeks, then you get to have PTSD.”

“Oh good,” said Rip, sarcastically.

“The good news is that ASR doesn’t have to become PTSD, and early therapy really helps stop it progressing further.”

Rip just sighed. Caitlin checked her watch.

“Okay, the worst thing we could do is leave you with lots of free time to sit and brood, so I’ve got some tasks for you to do between therapy sessions.”

Rip frowned. “I’d prefer to have some time to myself.”

“You can still have it, if you really want it. It’s very much up to you how much you participate in this. But I’d suggest that if you do some of the exercises that I’m going to get you to do, it will help.”

Rip gave her a long suffering look. “Whatever you deem necessary, Doctor Snow.”

“Okay, so I’d like you to keep a diary,” said Caitlin, “so I’ve got you a pad of paper, and crayons.”

“Crayons?”

“Basically you’d have to try very hard to hurt yourself with a crayon,” said Caitlin.

“Oh,” said Rip, “I see.”

“Sorry,” said Caitlin.

Rip waved a hand in dismissal. “Given my recent behaviour, I understand. What am I supposed to write in this diary?”

“Anything you like. Weird dreams, thoughts, your day. Stuff that makes you feel happy, stuff that makes you feel sad…” said Caitlin, with a shrug. “You’ll get the hang of it, I’m sure.”

“How is this supposed to help me?”

“It gets your thoughts out of your head and onto the page. Sometimes when we write things down they become clearer.”

“And you’re going to read it?”

Caitlin shook her head. “Not unless you want me to.”

Rip gave her a look of gratitude. It was bad enough that he had to discuss it with her without her reading his innermost thoughts – most of which involved various ways of ending his own life at the moment.

“Also, there’s a colouring book and before you say anything,” said Caitlin, because Rip already had his mouth open to protest, but quickly shut it at Caitlin’s words. “Before you say anything, colouring books help to deal with anxiety and can be useful therapy tools. They’re repetitive motion that gives you something to do with your hands. I got you the Doctor Who one, you’ll love it. One of the guys in it even looks a bit like you.”

Rip gave her a bewildered look. “What’s “Doctor Who”?”

Caitlin raised her eyebrows. “I think I’ll leave that one to Cisco to explain. You guys are going to have a lot of fun when he finds out you’ve never seen it.” She put the pad, crayons and (apparently) colouring book down on the bedside table. “Okay, I want you to aim to do a page a day.”

Rip didn’t think that any amount of colouring was going to help him. Colouring was for children. Although Rip had never had that opportunity himself, but his childhood wasn’t exactly typical.

There was a knock at the glass door. Standing there was a young man with brown hair, leanly built and lightly muscled. He was holding a long oblong, wooden box. The door clicked and opened.

“Hi there,” he said, slightly out of breath, “Am I early?”

“No, no,” said Caitlin. “We were just finishing up.”

Rip frowned at the intrusion, but Caitlin was getting to her feet.

“Oh god, sorry, we haven’t met yet,” said the young man. “I’m Barry Allen.” He held out a hand towards Rip as he barrelled into the room. “I wondered if you liked playing chess, it’s just that my last chess partner turned out to be an evil speedster supervillain who was trying to manipulate me, and I heard that he’d done the same to you.”

Rip’s eyes widened for just a second. “You’re the Flash.”

Barry grinned. “Yes, I’m also the Flash.”

Caitlin looked between the two of them, “I’ll leave you two to chat.” She stepped out of the room.

Rip pushed himself to his feet, slowly, and took Barry’s hand. “It’s good to meet you, Mr Allen. I would have preferred it to be under different circumstances.” He couldn’t meet Barry’s eyes.

“Yeah, well mind control is never fun. Been there, done that, but mine was only temporary and luckily the Arrow was there to stop me. I hurt people, people I should have protected, and it took me a while to get over that.”

“You have my deepest condolences,” replied Rip, sincerely, and sat down on the bed.

“So, chess?” asked Barry.

“I have to admit to being rather rusty when it comes to chess,” said Rip, rubbing the back of his neck. “But I would be open to a refresher course, and I seem to have very little else to do.”

Barry was ginning again. Rip noted that he did that a lot and somehow it was infectious. Rip might not want to grin, but he did feel his mood lighten slightly.

“We can set up on the bed,” said Barry, putting the box down as the door clicked shut behind Caitlin, reminding Rip once again that this was a prison. He hung his head for a moment.

“Yeah, I bet being locked in sucks,” said Barry, noticing Rip’s reaction.

“I deserve it,” said Rip. “I actually killed people, and did untold damage to the timeline as well.”

“Actually, I’ve done that too.”

“Killed people?” asked Rip, looking up at Barry sharply. He really didn’t seem the type.

“Well, when there’s been no other choice, but I meant damaging the timeline,” said Barry, setting up the board on the bed beside Rip. “We’re living in my greatest mistake.”

“I don’t understand,” said Rip.

“Yeah, I guess you’ve been out of the loop,” said Barry. “I tried to bring my mother back by going back in time and beating Thawne, but it didn’t work. I created an alternate timeline and tried to live in it for a while, but it didn’t work. Things were worse, so I tried to put it back to how it was…”

“And discovered that you couldn’t,” finished Rip.

Barry stopped setting up for a second, and looked up at Rip with guilt written across his face. “Yes, and all sorts of things have changed, mostly small things, but some big things too, and in this timeline, in a few months’ time, Savitar kills Iris.”

“How do you know that?” asked Rip. He searched his memory for everything that he knew about this period and the Flash, and definitely didn’t remember coming across any records of Iris West being killed at this point. However, he hadn’t checked up on how events now played out because he hadn’t realised that Barry had altered the timeline.

“I accidentally ran into the future,” Barry shrugged as if this wasn’t a big deal. “It’s a speedster thing.”

“I am intimately aware of that, and usually results in death by time wraith,” said Rip. “The speed force has its own rules on time travel and they don’t like it when people break them.”

“I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t. I did see a news ticker though and so I know some of the things that I have to change to save Iris.”

Rip sighed. “Manipulating time is not something to be undertaken lightly. Every time we, I mean the Legends, correct an aberration we risk making things worse, just as you did, and then not being able to fix it. At least you were able to return the timeline to something resembling the one that you left. If you aren’t extremely careful about what you change, you could end up with you or your friends dying as well as Iris.”

“But I have to try,” said Barry. “This is all my fault and I can’t just do nothing.”

“I do understand, Mr Allen, but alterations like that usually just make matters worse somehow. Time wants to happen. I’ve had direct, first-hand experience of it. I failed to save my wife and child on a number of occasions. Vandal Savage still killed them, kills them, in 2166,” said Rip, he blinked, determined not to start crying again.

“I’m so sorry,” said Barry, with definite empathy. “What were their names?”

“Miranda and Jonas. I miss them very much, but I know now that I can’t change what happens to them. Some things really are set in stone and no amount of attempts to alter them will result in a different outcome; and each time you try, you change things for the people of that period and not always for the better. It becomes unjustifiable to alter so much to save one or two people, no matter how much they might mean to us,” said Rip. He looked away from Barry for a second, so that he could continue to blink the inevitable tears away.

Barry looked distraught at this news, but Rip hadn’t finished. “However, and this is quite an important point, that isn’t to say that your case won’t be different. You may be able to select the right events to change Iris’s fate, and it is my sincere hope that you will be successful. If there’s one thing that I’ve learnt whilst being a time traveller, it’s that you cannot predict your personal future and the alterations that you made when you went back to fix things may not have solidified into immutability yet.”

Barry nodded, some relief visible now. “Okay, I think I can live with that. I’m not sure how I’d get up in the morning if I didn’t believe that I had at least a chance.”

“Sometimes belief and hope are all we have,” said Rip. “But I hold on to the fact that Vandal Savage is dead, and Miranda and Jonas will always be with me.”

Barry resumed setting up the board. “It’s hard to lose the people we love. It’s even harder when we think we can save them.” He sounded very much like he was speaking from experience and given what he’d just told Rip, he supposed he was. Barry hadn’t been able to save his mother, just as Rip couldn’t save his family.

“Time travel is the ultimate temptation. The Time Masters vetted their candidates for Captaincy very thoroughly, although I wonder if they erred with my selection,” said Rip. “It certainly didn’t end very well for them.”

“So I heard,” said Barry, and there was that grin again. “But it sounds like you were exactly the right person to be a Time Master.”

“Current evidence would suggest otherwise,” said Rip, with disappointment.

“Didn’t you just tell me that you can’t predict your own future?”

“But I should have been better prepared. My attempts to protect the Spear of Destiny were woeful, and my team have put themselves in danger countless times to undo my mistake.”

“Yeah, mine too. We have a surprising amount in common. Who’d have guessed that a Time Master and a Speedster would have so much to talk about?”

Rip glanced towards where he knew the camera to be that was keeping watch on them.

“Oh, I think Doctor Snow was well aware of how much we might have in common,” said Rip.

Barry groaned. “Yeah, this is exactly the kind of thing Caitlin would think of. I guess this is therapy for both of us.”

“It would seem so, Mr Allen,” replied Rip.

“Barry, call me Barry.”

“Barry,” said Rip. “Perhaps we should play.”

Barry nodded. “And you can tell me about the fun bits of time travel.”

“Time travel isn’t really a fun endeavour,” replied Rip. He had a brief flash of a half-formed memory of himself talking to Thawne about killing George Washington and quickly shook it away.

“There has to be some fun stuff. You must have seen some amazing things and met lots of famous people.”

“On occasion,” said Rip, giving some consideration to this.

“Come on then, you’ve got to give me something here,” said Barry.

“Well, there was the time I was in ancient Greece, Athens to be precise. I was supposed to be there dealing with a rogue time pirate who thought it was fun to play god, but I ended up discussing philosophy with this chap who refused to give me his name because he maintained that it was better to know nothing and know that I knew nothing. There was also a lot of drinking, and he could really hold his drink. It wasn’t until I got back to the Waverider that I realised I’d been talking to…”

“Socrates,” said Barry, with awe and his eyes wide, “you met Socrates.”

Rip nodded, with a pleased smirk at his companion’s reaction.

“You can’t stop there. I mean, what was he like?”

“Rather strange,” said Rip.

Barry held two pawns towards Rip. “Black or white?”

“Your choice,” said Rip.

Barry took black and turned the board so that it faced in the correct direction.

“I was hoping for more information than just “rather strange”,” said Barry.

“Well, if you win this game, I’ll explain,” replied Rip, with mischief in his eyes.

Barry cracked his knuckles. “I think I can manage that.”

Ten moves later, when Rip had him in checkmate, Barry looked up at the former Time Master with disbelief.

“You said you were rusty,” said Barry, accusatorially.

“Ah, yes, I did, and I am.”

“That’s rusty?” said the speedster, with utter dismay.

“Well, perhaps I should have mentioned that I once spent a pleasant week in Russia with Garry Kasparov who taught me how to play. My apologies for the omission, Barry, but I believe it was entirely worth it to see the look on your face right now.” It wasn’t necessarily that Barry had played badly, it was just that Rip had played better, but as he’d said, he had been taught to play by the best.

“I want a rematch,” said Barry.

“Well, I do have quite a lot of time on my hands at the moment.”

They reset the board and played again. Rip won. Rip won the next six games.

***

“That looks like it’s going well,” said Cisco, watching the monitor. Barry had just lost his eighth game to Rip, but seemed to think it was funny rather than frustrating.

“Yes, it makes a nice change for something to go right for once. I think they both needed this,” said Caitlin.

“I’m still finding it a bit hard to believe that’s the great, Captain Rip Hunter. The way that Team Legends talks about him, I thought he’d be taller, or more imposing, or something,” said Cisco. “Do you remember when we were fighting the Dominators and they were all going on about how Captain Hunter would have known what to do? Well, except Mick Rory. He seemed to think Rip was an idiot, but you know, he’s Heatwave.”

“He’s been through something terrible, Cisco. I doubt he’s at his best right now,” replied Caitlin. She understood what Cisco was saying, because her reaction had been similar, but she knew more about what had happened to Rip than Cisco did. She suspected the Rip Hunter was secretly very strong indeed, because he was still standing, and talking, and angry. If she’d had her mind so comprehensively violated, she doubted that she’d even be functional. She’d probably have curled up in a corner and given up all hope.

Joe West came into the room. “Barry said we had a guest. How’s it going?”

“It’s too early to really say,” said Caitlin. “But Barry’s enjoying being beaten at chess by him.”

“Really? I’ve never managed to beat Barry. Well, maybe when he was like eleven, but not since then,” said Joe.

“Huh,” said Cisco. “It’s never been my game. Far too old school, but Barry and the Fake Wells used to play all the time. I think Barry used to win a lot of their games, but maybe not all of them.”

Caitlin smiled as she realised that Rip wasn’t just a good chess player. He was a strategic thinker. That was something that she could work with. It meant that he’d probably got his own, perfectly logical reasons (to him), for believing that he was a murderer. If she could get to the bottom of what those were and work out where the fallacy was then she’d have a chance of helping him. She could explain where his thinking was flawed, and hopefully once Rip understood that he wasn’t thinking this through clearly, they could actually get him to understand that he wasn’t to blame.

An alarm sounded. Cisco switched his attention away from the screen to his metahuman monitoring program.

“We’ve got a robbery in progress,” said Cisco. “It looks like it’s downtown.”

Caitlin pressed a button on the control panel and activated the speaker in Rip’s room. “Barry, sorry to break up your game but we’ve got a robbery downtown.”

Caitlin listened as Barry rapidly apologised, and exited the room at lightning speed after zipping through putting away the chess pieces. Rip seemed somewhat fascinated by this, but then sighed. He looked up at the camera.

“Thank you, Doctor Snow.”

Caitlin pressed the button that would activate her microphone. “For what?”

“For that small reminder that I’m not alone. That I’m not the only one that Eobard Thawne has hurt.” Rip examined his hands.

“I just thought you’d enjoy playing chess,” replied Caitlin. “It’s heading towards lunchtime, do you think you might be up for some food?”

Rip shook his head, but then seemed to reconsider. “I might be interested in a cup of tea though.”

“I thought Englishmen liking tea was a stereotype,” suggested Caitlin, certainly that’s what Julian Albert had told her.

“Ah, but all stereotypes have to come from somewhere, Doctor Snow, and they often have some truth in them. I happen to like tea more than coffee.”

“I’ll bring it down for you, bear with me,” said Caitlin. She left Cisco directing Barry into taking down some bank robbers, which both of them could manage with their hands tied behind their backs, and went to make Rip his tea. And if there happened to be a sandwich on the tray that she took to him, then that would just be coincidence.


	4. Lost for a Long Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of the Flash parts of this story are set after the end of 3.12, but before Jesse Quick comes back to tell everyone that her dad has been kidnapped.
> 
> Fair warning that you may need a hanky for this chapter.

* * *

 

Eobard Thawne was taunting him. He was using his super-speed to keep just out of Rip’s reach, as Rip ran behind him desperately trying to catch him before… before… something important happened. Rip wasn’t sure he knew what that was but there was a deep feeling of dread in his mind. He ran through a dark green landscape of metal and shadows.

Then Thawne turned on him and grabbed him, his red lightning buzzing in the air.

“Well done, Rip,” said the speedster. “We’ve just got one more thing for you to do. We need you to kill your crew.”

“No,” said Rip, fearfully.

“You told me there was no lingering attachment. They need to die, Rip. You killed Sara, now you just need to kill the others. It’ll be easy once you return to them. They’ll think you’re back and take you in again.”

“No, I won’t do it.”

“Yes, you will, because you’re still ours, Rip. You’re still part of the Legion.”

“No, I’m not. I won’t hurt them.” He struggled in Thawne’s grasp. “No!” He tried to pull away…

And awoke in the bed that Team Flash had provided for him, tangled in his blankets, breathing hard and sweating fiercely. He lay there for a moment just reminding himself where he was and that it was just a dream. He wiped a hand across his face. The moisture on his skin was already cooling, but his heart rate was showing no sign of slowing. He sat up, and did his best to untangle himself from his sheets, and to try to calm himself, remembering how Caitlin had tried to get him to slow his breathing earlier in the day.

It was dark in the lab, but he could see movement through the glass wall. The shape of Cisco Ramon turned on one of the desk lights in the lab outside his room, knocked on the door and opened it enough to put his head round.

“Hey,” he said. “So, that was your third nightmare. I’m guessing you’re pretty fed up with sleeping.”

“Yes, I rather am,” said Rip, running a hand through his slightly damp hair. “You got the nightshift?”

“I was working late anyway. Caitlin said you’d never seen Doctor Who.”

“I have no idea what that even is,” replied Rip.

“They have television where you’re from, right?” asked Cisco.

“Where I’m from? No. But I have encountered it on a number of occasions and the Legends seem to quite enjoy it as a medium of entertainment. Plus there was my stint as a film student…” he shrugged.

“And nobody has mentioned Doctor Who to you?”

“Not until Caitlin gave me the colouring book this morning,” said Rip.

“Okay, so Caitlin said that if you can’t sleep then it’s okay to stop trying to go back to sleep and do something else. Do you want to watch some TV with me?” asked Cisco.

Rip shrugged again. “Whatever you recommend, Mr Ramon.”

“Okay, I’ll be back in a moment.” Cisco left, the door clicking shut behind him.

Rip looked around at the sparse room he’d been given and suddenly missed the Waverider. He remembered how the entire team had decided to renovate their own quarters after they’d seen Rip’s. For the entire mission to defeat Vandal Savage they’d put up with the standard quarters, spartan and with only a few personal items scattered about them. Once everyone had decided to stay on, there had been several complaints about how their quarters compared to Rip’s and Jax had set about refitting everyone’s rooms so that they were more homely.

There was nothing wrong with this room, but none of his things here and they lacked the cosiness of his quarters on the Waverider. Nothing smelt right or had the right textures. There was also the minor matter of the locked door. He shivered and pulled the blankets up around his shoulders.

Cisco returned wheeling, with one hand, a large flat screen TV on a trolley, with various bits of electrical equipment on the lower shelf of the trolley. In the other hand, he held a large beanbag. He plugged the television in and left it on the other side of the glass wall, so that Rip could watch it through the partition. Then he dragged the beanbag into the room and dumped it by Rip’s bed.

He pulled a remote control out of his pocket and turned the television on. “You’re going to love this.”

Rip doubted that, but he didn’t wish to appear rude. Hopefully it would be dull and it would put him back to sleep. Cisco came over to the bed.

“Let’s get you a bit more comfortable.” He fiddled with some controls that Rip hadn’t even realised were there until now, which apparently raised the head of the bed so that Rip could lean back. “There you go. Now you can watch TV in bed.”

“Thank you,” said Rip, quietly. He was very unused to being taken care of in such a manner.

“So, there are about 800 episodes of Dr Who, but there was the original run and the new one, so we’ll start with the new stuff. It’s still going to take a while to get through. Wow, I’ve just realised, this is going to be like watching CSI with Barry. I bet you sit there and pick holes in everything.”

Rip frowned. “Why would I do that?”

“Didn’t Caitlin tell you anything? It’s about a guy who travels in time.”

“Oh,” said Rip. “Hence why she thought the colouring book would be appropriate.” He hadn’t touched it since Caitlin had left it on his bedside table. Now that he looked at it, he noticed that it did appear to have a number of clocks on the cover, and a rather out of place blue police box.

Cisco sat on the beanbag and pressed more buttons on the remote. The program began. Music started up and there was a title page and a blonde girl, who seemed to be the main character.

“You didn’t mention that it was British,” said Rip, as it became clear from the accents.

“Yeah, homesick?”

“Not for London,” replied Rip. “Is she Doctor Who?” he pointed at the blonde girl.

“No, that’s Rose. We haven’t met the Doctor yet. Are you always this impatient when watching stuff?”

“Er, no, sorry. I don’t really, er, watch much in the way of television,” said Rip, which at least applied when he was himself. Phil had been an avid consumer of all kinds of televisual media and had also enjoyed a lot of recreational drugs, and he was very glad he wasn’t Phil anymore.

“There are a lot of gaps in your education that we need to fill,” said Cisco. “Now, a little quiet, please, this is a good bit.”

They watched in silence until the end of the episode.

“I hope he checked to see how she affected the timeline before he decided to take her with him,” commented Rip. “He seems somewhat irresponsible.”

“That’s kind of part of the fun of it. Next one?”

“I suppose so.” This television program was completely ludicrous. The mere idea that you could put a time machine in a police box and that it would be bigger on the inside was utterly ridiculous. Yet he found himself enjoying it, despite the hideous inaccuracies.

The next episode started.

“Well, that’s wrong,” said Rip. “There’s no space station at the end of the universe. That would just be impossible.”

Cisco gave him a look.

“Sorry, I’ll be quiet now.”

***

Rip and Cisco were still watching Doctor Who when Caitlin came in to check on her patient first thing in the morning. Or at least Cisco was, Rip was sleeping. Cisco put a finger to his lips to indicate that Caitlin should be quiet, and extricated himself from his beanbag. He came out of Rip’s room and carefully shut the door behind himself.

“He had a bad night?” asked Caitlin, looking back towards Rip. Cisco had found him some more pillows and raised the head of the bed, so she suspected that it wasn’t the most comfortable of sleeping positions.

“Three nightmares in a row and it didn’t look like he was going to be getting back to sleep again quickly.”

Caitlin nodded. “So, when did he fall asleep?”

“It was about half way through the fourth episode. He was like a little kid trying to keep his eyes open, and when he did fall asleep, I was worried that turning it off would just wake him up. If he’s been sleeping that badly since this all happened… well, it’s no wonder he looks like crap all the time.”

“Cisco!” said Caitlin.

“What? He does, and he desperately needs some sleep. Maybe you could postpone therapy until later today?”

Caitlin nodded. “Yes, if he’s actually sleeping then that definitely takes priority. I’ll go and get on with some work until he wakes up. And he’s not the only one that needs sleep, you know. You were up all night.”

“Yeah, I’ll go crash out in one of the labs. You’re going to keep an eye on him? I’m kind of warming to the guy.”

“Of course,” said Caitlin. “Now, go on. You look nearly as bad as Rip.”

“Hey, I’m not even in the same league as him when it comes to sleep deprivation, but it has been a while since I pulled an all-night TV marathon. Wake me up if the world needs saving.” Cisco gave one last look towards Rip and then headed out of the lab.

Caitlin smiled at her sleeping patient and went to examine the footage and medical data from the previous night. She watched Rip trying to settle down in bed and taking a long time to actually get to sleep, followed by him clearly having disturbing dreams, which included shouting out things, only some of which she could make out. She caught the word “Sara” several times and “no”, but the rest was much harder to discern. Rip woke up three times in all and each time he took longer to get back to sleep.

It was hard to watch and she was glad that Cisco had suggested doing something rather than Rip going through it all again or just lying awake. She knew that letting him sleep now might not help with his sleep tonight, but she’d rather he got some sleep, and they’d worry about when he did it later.

It was around eleven when he began to show signs of waking and Caitlin let him get up in his own time before she headed down with breakfast, which was more like brunch at this point. Again, getting Rip to eat anything was the priority here and she’d happily settle for whatever she managed to get him to ingest. Yesterday he’d drunk two cups of tea, some water and eaten half a sandwich; if he kept that up then she’d be more worried about him starving to death than anything else. It was still progress.

She headed to the kitchen and put a tray together. She’d bought supplies that morning and had stocked up on what Rip had mentioned to be his favourite tea, amongst other things. She carried the tray round to Rip’s room and knocked on his door. He was sat on the bed, with clean clothes on and had strewn the crayons across the blankets. He was avidly colouring a blue police box on the second page of the colouring book that she’d given him. He looked up as she knocked and suddenly looked a little guilty, like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been, or maybe he was just embarrassed.

“Er, hello,” he said.

Caitlin smiled. “That’s looking good.”

Rip put down the crayon. “I’ve only just started. I expect Mr Ramon told you about my poor night’s sleep, although apparently I was able to get to sleep eventually.”

“I sent Cisco to get some sleep himself,” said Caitlin. “I brought you breakfast.”

Rip hesitated, then nodded. “Thank you.”

Caitlin put the tray down on the table, and sat on the far end of the bed, opposite Rip.

“Do you want to talk about the dreams?” she asked.

“Not really,” said Rip, and went back to colouring in the police box.

“It might help to get it all out into the light of day.”

Rip raised an eyebrow. “I doubt it.” He looked at Caitlin. “I’ll make a deal with you. You explain to me what the glowing bracelets are for, and I’ll tell you about the dreams I had last night.”

Caitlin had been careful to wear long sleeves, but this morning she’d pushed them up her arms to make breakfast. She looked down at them.

“That’s private, Rip, and nothing to do with what we’re doing here,” replied Caitlin. “As your therapist, we both need to maintain a professional distance. No deal.”

“I thought not.” Rip didn’t sound surprised.

Caitlin took a deep breath. “I can’t help you, if you won’t tell me what you’re thinking.”

“You expect me to talk about myself, but you’re not going to tell me anything about my therapist.” Rip was very carefully shading an intricate pattern of cogs. “It seems somewhat unfair that I give you my personal history without you giving anything in return, and I wasn’t exactly fully briefed on who I was meeting before my dear Legends dropped me off.”

“Well, I suppose I can tell you a bit about myself. I’m 29, my parents were both doctors, so I decided to become one too. I have a medical degree, but went straight into research, and ended up working at STAR Labs. Will that do?”

“For now. You didn’t explain the cuffs though.”

Caitlin looked at Rip and thought for a second. She made a decision and took a deep breath.

“I have powers. I’m a metahuman. It took them a while to manifest and they also affect my mental state. I’m not a very nice person if I use my powers. Cisco made me these cuffs to suppress my powers,” said Caitlin.

Rip stopped his colouring and closed the book. One by one he collected up all of the crayons up and put them back in the box.

“I dreamt that Eobard Thawne asked me again to kill my team, except on this occasion they believed that I had come back to my senses and they trusted me. I dreamed the same thing three times and only on the last occasion was I able to wake myself before I killed them all,” said Rip. “Because they trusted me, it was easy. Easier even than just setting the ship to self-destruct.”

“Why do you think you dreamt that?” asked Caitlin.

“Aren’t you supposed to tell me that?” said Rip.

“That’s not how this works,” replied Caitlin, gently. “You need to come to your own conclusions. I can’t tell you what you were thinking.”

“Because I’m a murderer, so of course I dreamt of murdering people.”

“Rip, you’re not a murderer. It wasn’t you,” said Caitlin. “You’re dreaming about Thawne forcing you to kill your friends. You have to know that you wouldn’t have done any of this if you’d had your correct memories.”

“All Thawne did was take what was already there and…” Rip waved a hand, “turn it up. I’m entirely capable of killing. I’ve killed in self-defence before. It’s only one step from there to murder.”

“But they _are_ different,” said Caitlin.

Rip shook his head vehemently. “You’re missing my point. When you spend your days moving through time and seeing history as a map laid out before you, an academic exercise to be completed correctly, it’s easy to get blasé and stop considering all the individual lives that you affect. The Time Masters actively encouraged it because it made it easier to steer history on its course. If we started to see history as people then we’d perhaps begin to care too much about what we had to do and it would make it harder to remove aberrations, because they wouldn’t be just aberrations. Thawne tapped into that. My necessary detachment. He took away my ability to see history as human beings.”

“You don’t think like that now, though. If you did then you wouldn’t be struggling with what you did. There was a definite change in your mental state.” Caitlin realised that this was the sticking point. This was what Rip couldn’t get past.

“But I wasn’t someone different, I was just more of the worst parts of me,” said Rip. “That person is still inside me and I have to take responsibility for my actions.”

“You have already by helping your team to track down the final piece of the Spear,” said Caitlin.

“That’s not justice for Sara or Mid-Nite,” said Rip. “Or the countless others that died because of my carelessness in altering the timeline.”

“Shouldn’t you be putting all of this at Thawne’s door? Even if we assume that you were at all responsible for any of this, he was the one who had the plan to find the Spear and he was the one who gave you your orders,” said Caitlin.

“Oh, I agree that he gets some of the blame. There is plenty to go around, but not all of it. A large part of it rests squarely with me and my inability to rein in my worst impulses.”

“But you weren’t in control, Rip,” said Caitlin.

“It didn’t feel that way. I deserve to be locked up, because I’m a dangerous liability,” said Rip.

“Is that why you tried to kill yourself?” Caitlin asked, gently.

Rip hung his head, and looked up at Caitlin from under his eyelids. “I don’t know where to go from here. I can’t see a way forwards. Sara should have left me for dead on the battlefield of Camelot. It would have been easier on everyone. But I was a failure at even that. I couldn’t save my family, I couldn’t protect the Spear, I couldn’t even kill myself.”

“That’s a good thing,” said Caitlin.

“Is it?” asked Rip. “Because I’ve been feeling lost for a long time. I took the Waverider to the sun and I was going to crash into it with Vandal Savage’s meteorite, wipe myself out of existence. But I passed out and my family were there, waiting for me. I could have stayed, but I wasn’t ready.” Rip put his head in his hands. “I should have stayed.”

“And the Legion would have the Spear because there wouldn’t have been any Legends to stop them,” said Caitlin. “Your life is important, Rip.”

“My life is pain, Doctor Snow,” stated Rip, bluntly. “My life is being the husband to a murdered wife, the father of a murdered son, and having my mind twisted so that I tried to murder my friends. I tried to murder the only people in my life who mattered to me as much as Miranda and Jonas.” Rip pushed himself back against the head of the bed, tears in his eyes. He gestured with his hands as he spoke, agitated and defensive. “I can’t live like this. I can’t carry on shouldering this agony of grief and guilt and self-loathing. You can distract me with colouring books and television shows and whatever else you can concoct, but none of that stops me from feeling the unbelievable hurt that is with me constantly. Just let me die and I can finally join my family.”

“I think your other family might take issue with that,” said Caitlin.

“They’re better off without me, and as has been proven, they don’t really need me anymore,” said Rip.

Caitlin wasn’t sure what to say next. She knew that Rip was wrong but proving it was the hard part. Perhaps it was time to try a different tack.

“If I was to say to you that I was thinking of taking my own life and joining Ronnie, what would you say to me?” asked Caitlin.

“I’d tell you not to be so stupid. Your research on metahumans is clearly an important component of Team Flash’s work. You still have a lot to give, and Barry, Cisco and the others would be devastated by your loss,” said Rip, without hesitation. “But your situation isn’t mine.”

“Why do you say that? I lost my husband. I know we didn’t have a child but we might have done in the future. I miss him every day. But I am doing my best to move on and live because Ronnie wouldn’t have wanted me to die for nothing. And I’d be being selfish, and not thinking of my team’s feelings,” said Caitlin.

“So, you’re saying that my wish to join my family is selfish?” asked Rip.

Caitlin had to tread carefully here, so she spoke cautiously. “Suicide is a selfish act. It’s entirely centred on the individual, they don’t think about what they leave behind them. That’s often because they think they have nothing. But I know you don’t have nothing. You have a crew who care about you and I watched you beat Barry at chess, you are _smart_. You want to throw all of that away, just so that you don’t have to deal with your problems.”

Rip sighed. “That is somewhat the point.”

“Did you ever get any kind of grief counselling after your family were killed?” asked Caitlin, already knowing the answer but feeling like she had to ask rather than tell.

“The Time Masters forbid their members from having relationships. I couldn’t even tell anyone, apart from Gideon, that they were dead,” said Rip, his eyes watery and focused anywhere that wasn’t Caitlin. “At least not until I met the team.”

Caitlin had to take a moment because she suddenly realised that Rip had probably never really talked through his grief with anyone, had never even really talked about his family, and she felt physical pain in her chest for him. She discovered that she was on the verge of tears herself. She took a breath and tried to compose herself.

“Rip, you never talked to anyone about Miranda and Jonas’ deaths?”

Rip shook his head, tears gathering in his eyes and spilling out to roll down his face.

“I had a recording of a message from them. I used to watch it over and over again, just to hear their voices again.”

Caitlin blinked and put a hand to her mouth. She hadn’t anticipated how hard this would be for her as well as Rip. She found herself deploying her own calming techniques, just to stop herself from bursting into tears. Rip had been alone and he’d had no one to turn to in his grief.

“You were alone then, Rip, but you’re not alone now,” said Caitlin, unable to keep the sadness out of her voice. “You have friends. You can talk to us. Tell us things about them. Remember them.”

Once more Rip shook his head.

“I do see what you’re trying to say, but right at this moment, I can’t see anything beyond how much pain I’ve caused everyone.”

“No, you’re thinking negatively because you’re depressed. You’ve never dealt with your grief properly and now it has been compounded by an unimaginable trauma. To you, everything is bad at the moment and you can’t see the good. We need to help you back to something more even, so that you have the good, positive stuff back again.”

“And how exactly do you propose to do that?” asked Rip, with very little suggestion he was really interested in the answer.

“I teach you to spot patterns in the way you’re thinking and then move away from the damaging patterns and into better ones. It’s called CBT, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. It’ll take a few sessions, but it really does work. Maybe I’ll give you a crash course in mental health exercises after you’ve eaten your breakfast.”

Rip sighed and looked over at the tray of food. His shoulders slumped. “It would be nice if eating didn’t just make me nauseous.”

“Is that why you haven’t been able to eat much? You should have said yesterday,” said Caitlin. “I can prescribe you something for that.”

Rip frowned. “I hadn’t thought.”

“Don’t worry about it, now I know I can do something. Try just drinking some tea and maybe nibbling something slowly and see how that goes.” Caitlin got to her feet and poured Rip a cup of tea. She handed it over and he sipped it. She followed it up with a piece of toast, which Rip received with less enthusiasm.

He sighed and nibbled a corner. Caitlin smiled encouragingly, and by the time they were done with breakfast, Rip had eaten an entire slice of toast and drunk two cups of tea with milk, with a little prompting. She’d talked him through some exercises to control his breathing during panic attacks and had begun on strategies to notice overly negative thoughts. She considered this to be relatively productive, and when Cisco knocked on the door a few hours later to see if Rip wanted to continue with their TV marathon, she felt like she was beginning to get somewhere. Now she just needed to persuade him that there were things to live for, but she was working on that.

Caitlin emerged from Rip’s room and headed to the cortex, where she found Barry and Iris, locked in an embrace.

“You were watching the cameras?” asked Caitlin, with realisation.

“It was my turn,” said Iris, tears in her eyes. “That poor man.”

Barry gave Caitlin a look. “He mentioned them to me. I had no idea…”

Caitlin looked at the screen where Rip was sat on his bed, his knees pulled up to his chin. He was looking in the direction of the television but didn’t really seem to be seeing it.

“How are we going to get him through this?” asked Barry. “The Legends are counting on us.”

“We keep doing what we’ve been doing,” said Caitlin. “I feel like we’re getting somewhere, we just need to remind him that he has people who love him.”


	5. Mind Control Group Therapy

Rip’s first few days in the care of Team Flash were surprisingly (as far as he was concerned, anyway), relatively good. There were whole minutes where he completely forgot why he was there and times when he’d actually smiled.

They fell into a routine easily, because Rip finally agreed that the last thing he needed was time to think and Caitlin had been right that being occupied was better than staring at a wall. They had morning therapy sessions, which involved a lot of talking, mostly around the same subject areas and his inability to believe that none of this was his fault. Caitlin was a patient listener, who actively questioned his assumptions about his role in what had happened. Rip still found it hard to even discuss what had happened let alone redirect his thoughts on the matter, but he acknowledged that he was at least talking about it. Caitlin seemed to think that they were making some kind of progress, even if it was slow.

In the afternoon, either Cisco or Barry would come and watch TV with him or play board games. The Dr Who marathon continued. Episode nine led to a small freak out when one of the actors bore a striking resemblance to a young Malcom Merlyn, but it was a good episode and Rip refused to ruin his enjoyment of one of the few things he actually had begun to find happiness in. Cisco muttered something about making sure not to watch “Torchwood”, and they carried on as if Rip hadn’t needed a moment to deal with a very predictable but annoying panic attack.

Barry had given up with trying to beat Rip at chess after another run of defeats and was now trying him out with various other games. So far, they had tried Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne, Risk and Monopoly. Rip was good at Risk, bad at Monopoly and the others depended on who had the best day. Rip had never had a lot of free time before, because Time Masters usually had somewhere to be and something to do, and the concept of having nothing to do was new to him. He appreciated Barry and Cisco’s visits.

Caitlin had questioned him on what he liked to read, got all of his choices, and then added a pile of pulp Westerns when further questioning revealed his interest in the period. (“All of your choices were so serious, these are more fun. Think of this more like holiday reading,” she’d said.) He read them with amusement and made notes in the margins in purple crayon about their inaccuracies. She put on music over the speakers in his room, when he asked for it, and found whatever genres and artists he wanted.

Caitlin encouraged him to talk about his family if he wanted to and he told her about Jonas’ first day at school and how he’d told his teacher his daddy was a space man which was why he was away so often. Luckily the teacher hadn’t believed it. He talked about his wedding to Miranda and how beautiful she’d looked. He remembered the happiest moments and Caitlin steered him away from the regrets. He’d never remembered his family like this to anyone and he found comfort in telling someone how proud he was of his darling, brilliant son and his beautiful, strong wife who had been taken from him.

There were the good days, when he was able to push through the depths of his depression and come up for air. Other days were less good, and he had no idea why. He would have blamed the bad night’s sleep, but he always slept badly. Often his bad mood led to lashing out at the people who were trying to help him, and that only made him feel worse.

“I thought we’d try to talk about your relationship with your team,” said Caitlin, at the latest morning therapy session.

Rip let out a small and unamused laugh. “My team abandoned me here for you to deal with. I’m currently nothing more than a burden to them.”

Caitlin frowned. “You do realise that isn’t true, don’t you? They left you here to get help because they want you to get well and be part of the team again.”

“All they needed from me was the location of the final fragment of the Spear. Now I’m just a broken murderer that tried to kill them. Why would they ever want me to join them again?”

“Because they care for you.”

“I very much doubt it.”

“Why do you think that?”

Now there was a psychiatrist’s question, if ever there was one, thought Rip, and in this case it was a pretty stupid one.

“I believe that I already said that I tried to kill them. It is very hard to feel warmly towards someone who snapped your neck,” said Rip. He was rewarded with a mental image of Sara, choking and struggling beneath his hand. Her slender, delicate neck having the life squeezed out of it.

“I agree, but that wasn’t you, Rip.”

“It _was_ me!” shouted Rip. “It. Was. Me. I did those things. I remember my reasoning behind every action. I remember the total absence of any feeling towards them. I shot Sara in the stomach because I knew she’d die painfully. I broke her neck in front of Jax because I knew it would hurt him to watch me. I made my best friend go against her nature even though she pleaded with me not to make her. And I destroyed the medallion that would help them find the Spear because I knew Mr Heywood wanted it desperately to save his grandfather. I was vindictive and evil in every way, and the worst part about it was that I actually enjoyed it.”

“You enjoyed it?” asked Caitlin, slightly taken aback. She clearly hadn’t been expecting that admission.

“Yes, Doctor Snow, I enjoyed it, because I finally was free of the guilt and grief that I had been carrying for not saving my wife and child. I had no responsibility to the timeline. There was no need to deal with temporal aberrations or protect my crew. All I had to do was serve my masters and be rewarded. I told Jax that it was “liberating”, that I was better off, and I believed it.”

He thought that was such an abhorrent thing to say that Caitlin would leave, but she didn’t. She just sat there looking at him as if she was expecting more.

“Who do you think makes a better puppet?” she asked. “Someone who hates what he’s doing every moment, or someone who actually enjoys what they’re being asked to do? It makes sense that Thawne made sure you’d want to do what you did. He made you hate your team because it was useful to him.”

“I don’t think this is a good idea today,” said Rip, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck, and turning away from Caitlin.

“Rip, you need to talk about this,” said Caitlin.

“Not today,” growled Rip. “Just leave me alone.”

“Shutting people out isn’t going to help,” replied Caitlin.

“What part of “not today” did you fail to understand?” shouted Rip.

Caitlin took a deep breath. “Okay, you can have the day off, but that is all. We’ve got work to do and putting it off doesn’t make it disappear. And you don’t get to sit here and brood on your own either. If you’re not going to have your session with me then there are other things you can be doing.”

“Like playing with crayons?” said Rip, with a snarl and mocking undertone.

“Like practicing your breathing exercises and CBT techniques,” said Caitlin.

“How exactly is any of that supposed to help me deal with being a murderer?”

“Because right now you can’t talk about what you need to because your anger is getting in the way. Those exercises will help.”

“What I need is not to be watched every moment of the day, and monitored,” said Rip, with a gesture at the medical cuff on his wrist. “And expected to pick apart my life for your delectation.”

“We’re trying to help you, Rip. I know this is hard for you and I know you don’t know how to deal with what you’re feeling right now, but you’re not the first person to have their mind controlled by someone else, or be coerced into doing something against your will. There are strategies for dealing with this, but you have to want to help yourself. None of this will work if you’re not going to take part.” Her tone was uncompromising.

Rip realised that Caitlin was angry with him, but he didn’t care.

“I didn’t want to come here. I didn’t want any of this. My team unilaterally made a decision and then dumped me on your doorstep,” said Rip, with bitterness. “You’re not even a real psychiatrist.”

“No, but I am the only doctor who will believe the things that you need to tell me to get well without putting you in a straightjacket, so that makes me your only hope for getting well enough to get out of here and back with your team,” said Caitlin, crossly, with a gesture towards the door. “You need my help.”

“Get out,” said Rip, quietly. “This isn’t help, this is torture.”

Caitlin raised her eyebrows, but opened the door and left without another word. The door locked behind her and Rip saw red. He thumped into the locked door with a frustrated yell of infuriation and paced across the room and back again, feeling like a caged animal, his anger building.

He kicked out at the metal leg of the bed, needing to expend his anger on something. The metal was unyielding and not very satisfying. He looked for something better, and overturned the bedside table in a fit of rage and kicked it until it disintegrated into its component parts. The burning anger he felt was inexplicable and all encompassing. He wanted to smash things and break them, to be broken like he was. His breathing was rapid from the exertion and the adrenaline was making him shake. He looked at the destruction and realised that it didn’t make him feel any better. He sighed and dropped his head. He grabbed the blanket from the bed, went to the corner of the room, furthest away from the door, and squeezed himself into it as tightly as he could, pulling the blanket over his shoulders and legs, and then around himself as tightly as he could manage.

He closed his eyes and lost himself in dark memories of the Waverider, unable to even begin to understand how to leave them. He tried to shove the memories aside, using the techniques that Caitlin had taught him and sleep. It only half worked.

***

“He is _really_ angry,” said Barry, who had been sat in the cortex watching the video feed. “We’re going to need a new table.”

“There are bound to be bad days,” said Caitlin, a little sadly. “Recovery from something like this isn’t normally a straight line upwards. He’s going to have set backs and days when nothing seems right, even after he’s well enough to leave us.” Things had been going so well that this had taken her by surprise a little. Up until now Rip had dealt with his issues by quietly retreating into himself if things got too much, and hadn’t shown any signs of this level of anger. However, violence was always a possibility, which was why someone was supposed to watch the video feed at all times.

“But there’s got to be a reason for this,” said Barry. “He was playing board games with me yesterday and he actually seemed, not happy, but not depressed either. He smiled a couple of times.”

Caitlin shook her head. “Sorry, Barry, there really doesn’t have to be any particular thing. Some days he’s probably expending a lot of energy to appear normal and other days he can’t do it…”

Barry sighed, still looking at Rip in the corner of the room, wrapped in a blanket. He turned to Caitlin. “Are you okay?”

Caitlin nodded. “I know he’s not angry at me. He’s probably feeling frustrated and homesick and sleep deprived. None of that will be helping. I just need to keep working with him and taking him through all the reasons why he’s wrong and we’re right.”

“Yeah, I remember how helpless I felt after Bivolo. I don’t know what I’d have done without all of you constantly reminding me that it wasn’t really me,” Barry sighed and Caitlin gave him a squeeze on the shoulder, and was rewarded with a small smile. “Julian probably feels the same about being Alchemy, but he’s about as bad as Rip when it comes to expressing his feelings.”

Barry’s words gave Caitlin an idea. It would take a day or two to organise, but hopefully it would be something that would help everyone. Assuming that they all agreed to it. Caitlin had her work cut out for her.

***

“Are you sure that this is a good idea?” asked Barry, as Caitlin positioned four chairs in a circle in the lab.

“Yes, I think it’s an excellent idea,” said Caitlin.

“Have you told Julian exactly what this is?” asked Barry.

“I may have glossed over a few of the finer points, but I did say that I had someone with similar problems that I wanted him to meet. It took quite a bit of persuasion to even get him here. Come on, sit.” She indicated a chair for Barry to take.

Barry sighed. “And Rip?”

“I told him that we’re going to try something new today and, after some discussion, he agreed to attend.”

“But you haven’t told him that this is mind control group therapy?”

Caitlin just gave him a look with that half raise of her eyebrows that she did.

“So, you haven’t really told him anything?”

Caitlin shook her head, looking a little nervous. “I thought it’d be better if you were all already here and then I can explain.”

“Well, I hope it works,” said Barry, because Rip had spent the last two days refusing to see anyone or do anything. It was a giant step backwards in their hopes for his treatment and Barry had no idea how they got him back on track.

Julian walked into the room, his eyes locating Caitlin. “Ah, there you are.” He briefly gave Barry a nod. “Allen” Then turned back towards Caitlin. “I was wondering if you’d had a chance to take a look at my most recent notes on the power dampening cuffs?”

“Not yet, but I should get to them later today. Take a seat, Julian.”

The blond Englishman frowned. “When you said that you had someone with similar problems, I had rather assumed that you didn’t mean Barry.”

“I didn’t. Well, I didn’t just mean Barry. I’ll go and get Rip. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to meet you,” Caitlin disappeared in the direction of Rip’s room.

“Would this have anything to do with the mysterious guest that you’ve all been keeping me away from?” asked Julian.

“Yeah,” said Barry, leaning back on his chair and crossing his arms lazily over his chest. “And I doubt he’s going to be thrilled about any part of this.”

“Well, now I’m actually intrigued,” said Julian, taking the seat on the opposite side of the circle to Barry.

A couple of minutes later Caitlin was back, and Rip trailed behind her. He was wearing a grey t-shirt, and dark pants, but no shoes or socks and was looking about as bad as he usually did. Barry guessed that he’d had another bad night of no sleep and bad dreams, which seemed to be every night, and were clearly draining Rip of any strength he had.

“Have a seat and I’ll introduce you,” said Caitlin, to Rip. It was at this point that Rip seemed to notice that there were other people in the room.

He frowned. “What is this?”

Barry noticed Julian’s eyes widen slightly as he heard Rip’s accent.

“I thought we could try some group therapy,” said Caitlin.

“Wait a minute,” said Julian, “you didn’t say anything about group therapy.”

“No, but you did agree to talk to someone about everything that’s happened, so I thought you could all help each other,” said Caitlin.

Rip sighed and flopped down in a chair, wrapping his arms around himself. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Caitlin sat down in the remaining chair, ready with her tablet to take notes. “Okay, so you both know Barry, but you don’t know each other. Julian, this is Rip. Rip, this is Julian.”

Julian was looking suspiciously at Rip. “Exactly what kind of a name is Rip?”

Rip regarded Julian with annoyance. “Are all your questions going to be this insightful?”

“Who even are you? Caitlin…” began Julian.

“Okay,” said Caitlin, sharply, making it very clear that everyone should be quiet.

Barry just gave her a “I told you so” look. Even beyond the fact that neither Rip nor Julian really wanted to talk about what they’d been through, putting two extremely sarcastic, snarky Englishmen in a room together seemed to be asking for trouble. And possibly some kind of sarcasm overload condition that he didn’t ever want to see.

“How about we start with some proper introductions?” suggested Caitlin. “Maybe say a little bit about yourself. So, I’ll start: my name is Caitlin Snow, I’m a medical doctor, currently working at STAR Labs, specialising in meta-human biology and neurochemistry. The reason why I’m here is as your group facilitator but also because, as you know, I’m having trouble coming to terms with some of the things that I did whilst I was Killer Frost. Barry?”

Barry rolled his eyes, letting out a huff of breath. “My name is Barry Allen and I’m the fastest man alive. By day, I work as a forensic scientist for the CCPD and the rest of the time I’m out saving people and protecting the city from metahuman threats and anything else that decides to cause trouble. Caitlin asked me to join the group because I was once turned into Angry Flash by a metahuman called Roy G. Bivolo.”

Caitlin nodded. “Thank you, Barry. Julian.”

It was Julian’s turn to give Caitlin an annoyed look. “I’m Julian Albert. I’m also a forensic scientist at the CCPD which is how I met Barry, and I’ve recently joined “Team Flash”.” He made air quotes around the words “Team Flash”. “I assume that I’m here because I was controlled by an entity called Savitar, who turned me into Alchemy, made me kill my archaeological team and used me to create metahumans from normal humans that were metahumans in Flashpoint, which resulted in the deaths of four policemen, and probably others that I don’t even know about.”

Caitlin gave Julian a smile, and Barry realised that maybe Caitlin liked Julian just a little bit. “Thank you, Julian. Okay, Rip.”

Rip was staring at the ground. “My name is Rip Hunter, I used to be a Time Master. I’m not sure what I am now.”

“Wait, did you just describe your occupation as “Time Master”?” asked Julian.

“Yes, I didn’t _think_ that I mumbled,” replied Rip, tersely.

“That’s fine, Rip. Why don’t you tell us why I asked you to join the group?” Caitlin seemed determined to persevere.

“Oh, I suppose it was because I was brainwashed by an evil speedster and killed George Washington, mind controlled King Arthur to kill Sir Galahad, murdered the White Canary (although she did get better), murdered Doctor Mid-Nite (but he is properly dead), and tried to kill my crew by setting our ship to self-destruct. Did I miss anything?”

Barry just looked at Rip, and let out a long sigh. He hadn’t encountered this side of Rip before, the part of him that clearly enjoyed being antagonistic with people that annoyed him.

“Your team rescued George Washington, which is why there’s now a statue of Heatwave in Washington,” said Barry.

Rip pointed towards Barry with a finger. “Yes, of course, how could I forget that, but I did persuade the English to hang him and Mr Rory. So you could even say I committed murder first, and then attempted murder of the same person. There really aren’t many people that can say that about a historical figure.”

“If you two aren’t going to take this seriously then I’m not quite sure what my point in being here is,” said Julian, crossly.

“He’s not joking,” said Barry.

“He just said that he killed George Washington,” said Julian, with obvious disbelief.

“Yes, and I did,” said Rip.

Barry shot Rip an exasperated look. Captain Hunter was not making this easy. “I know it sounds unbelievable but he’s a time traveller. He’s been staying with us because he was mind controlled by Eobard Thawne, also known as the Reverse Flash, who spent quite a lot of time manipulating me and doing bad things here in Central City before he started causing Rip trouble.”

Julian was just staring at Rip with his mouth open. He looked at Caitlin. She shrugged. “Welcome to Team Flash, we also know time travellers,” said Caitlin.

“My apologies,” said Julian, clearly wrong footed. “I took your tone for flippancy.”

“No, I should apologise,” said Rip, somewhat unexpectedly. “I was being flippant, because if I’m not then I would actually have to remember that I really am a murderer.”

“You’re not a murderer,” said Barry, “it wasn’t you.” It was a standard refrain, but if they said it enough then perhaps Rip would start to believe it.

“It felt like it was me. I remember it like it was me,” said Rip, one fist clenching angrily.

“At least you do remember what you did,” said Julian. “I just knew that I was blacking out and that people I knew were dead or worse. I thought it was a dream. I could hear his voice, calling my name, again and again, until it physically hurt.”

“I wish I hadn’t been able to remember,” said Rip, looking down. “I truly wish I couldn’t see Sara’s face as I choked her to death, and snapped her neck. It might help me sleep better.”

“I don’t sleep well,” said Julian. “I don’t… really… sleep. I take pills that knock me out.”

“Maybe I should try that,” said Rip, without much enthusiasm.

“Yeah, pills don’t work on me,” said Barry. It was hard to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “I’d just burn through them. I used to dream about killing Oliver and Eddie. Uh, Eddie Thawne was Joe’s partner. He killed himself to stop Eobard… he was a hero. Now I dream about Savitar killing Iris, and I wake Iris up because I call her name in my sleep.”

Rip’s head snapped up. Julian was looking at him too.

“This isn’t really about me,” said Barry.

“It’s as much about you as anyone,” said Caitlin. “That’s what group therapy is for. Everyone gets a chance to speak.”

“Including you?” asked Rip.

Caitlin gave a nervous nod. “I admit that I haven’t been sleeping well either. I haven’t resorted to pills but I sometimes dream about hurting Barry or Julian, and I wake up and need to check that my cuffs are still charged. Some nights I have to get up and look in the mirror and make sure that my eyes and hair are the right colour.”

“Oh Caitlin…” said Barry, shaking his head. It actually physically hurt him to think of how much pain he had caused his friends.

Caitlin shrugged. “Killer Frost is part of me and I have to learn to live with her. I have my cuffs. I didn’t kill anyone. Hopefully the worst will never happen.”

“I’m sorry, Caitlin,” said Barry.

“I know you are,” said Caitlin. “But you can’t keep apologising for a mistake, and it was a mistake. This wasn’t what you wanted.”

“To be fair, we’re all here because we made mistakes,” said Rip. “I screwed up being Captain of the Waverider, and I didn’t protect the Spear of Destiny.”

“If you can travel through time, can’t you just go back and sort everything out?” asked Julian. “I made a mistake too. I thought I was talking to the ghost of my dead sister, but it was actually Savitar, luring me to the Philosopher’s Stone. If I could go back and save my sister, I’d never have released Savitar. We could save Iris without having to worry about what we change over the next few months. It would all be different.”

Rip shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that. For all we know, it would make things worse. Someone else would release Savitar, someone who might have worshipped him willingly.”

“But my sister would be alive,” said Julian.

“Julian, you know how damaging what I did to the timeline was,” said Barry. “I thought I could change something and make things better but they only made things worse. Maybe your sister didn’t die before I created Flashpoint. Maybe this really is all my fault. I just don’t know.”

“But it’s okay to change things to save Iris?” asked Julian, with clear accusation.

“It might not be,” said Rip. “But I do know that before Flashpoint, Iris West was alive at this point. You may actually be correcting an aberration.”

“And my sister?” asked Julian.

Rip shook his head. “Unless her death is also an aberration, it’s unlikely that I can change it without doing more damage.”

“Cisco would probably be dead,” said Barry. “You helped him beat Gypsy, and without you pointing out the flaw in her tactics…” He left the consequences hanging.

“She’d have killed him,” said Julian, with a soft sigh. “And now you’re basically asking me to choose between two lives.”

“More,” said Barry. “If she’d beaten Cisco then she’d have taken HR back to Earth 19 for execution. And you’ve been working with us for a few weeks now. How many times have you spotted something that we’ve missed or given us an idea that has taken us in a different direction? You’re as much part of our victories as any of us. Maybe we wouldn’t have had them without you.”

Rip gave a small nod. “You’ve already impacted people’s lives just by being here, and apparently often for the better. Imagine how different it might have been if you weren’t here. Would you really have me erase all those things?”

“How do you do it?” asked Julian, looking at Rip, shaking his head. “How do you have such power and stay sane?”

“Quite clearly my sanity is in question, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.” Rip took a deep breath. “But you’re right, it is hard. There was a reason why Time Masters used to work alone and were encouraged to have no ties. Everything is easier without attachments.”

“Everything except being a human being,” said Barry.

“Yes, everything except that,” said Rip, a flick of his finger in Barry’s direction.

There was silence for a moment.

“I never meant to get attached to the team,” said Rip, his eyes firmly on the floor. “They were supposed to be a means to an end. A way of getting my family back. I didn’t expect to start caring about them.”

Julian was the one to nod and reply. “It appears to be an occupational hazard where members, and former members, of Team Flash are concerned. Despite my best efforts, you’ve become my friends. Which is why it pains me to know that I caused you so much harm when I was Alchemy. And I’m still not sure that I won’t do it again.”

“Julian…” began Barry.

“It doesn’t matter how likely it really is that I’ll become Alchemy again,” said Julian, not allowing Barry to finish. “It feels like I’m only ever one step away from another blackout.”

“Yes, I remember being worried that it would happen again, or I’d have a relapse of some sort after Bivolo. It’s a horrible feeling to not know if it’s really over.”

“But it is,” said Caitlin. “You and Oliver caught Bivolo.”

“I know, but like Julian said, you can know something but still not really believe it,” said Barry.

Rip folded his arms around his body again.

“What about you, Rip? Have you felt like that too?” asked Caitlin.

“No, I know that I’m entirely capable of becoming that person again,” said Rip. “Because I always was.”

Barry shook his head. “You know that isn’t true.”

“Why would I know that?” said Rip, crossly. “You only met me a few days ago. How could you possibly know who I am?”

“Your crew speak very highly of you. I trust their judgement,” said Barry. “And they trust you.”

“They were wrong to put their trust in me,” said Rip. “I have brought them nothing but danger and harm.”

“That isn’t at all what Sara told me,” said Caitlin. “She told me that you gave them all the chance to get off or come back and they all came back.”

“I was wrong to ask that of them. I made an error in judgement.”

Julian rolled his eyes. “Oh give it a rest, mate. They’re grown-ups, they knew what they were getting themselves into and apparently they were happy to stay on your ship. You can’t take the blame for everything, and I know because everyone in this room is trying to do it. I couldn’t stop Savitar using me, Barry couldn’t have stopped Bivolo using his anger against him, Rip isn’t a murderer and Caitlin is strong enough to never become Killer Frost again. We don’t have time to be martyrs. We need to get out there, and get Savitar, and the speedster that messed with Rip’s brain, whatever his name is.” Julian gestured in Rip’s direction as his words became faster and more vehement.

Barry raised his eyebrows, but nodded. “Yeah, maybe we should all forgive ourselves and acknowledge that we can’t control every situation. It’s time to move on and deal with the things that we can do something about.”

There was silence for a moment as everyone considered this.

Rip was shaking his head. “Are we done? I have some pressing reading to get back to.”

“Yes, I think we could finish there,” said Caitlin. “That was a good session. Well done, everyone. I know that was hard for you all.”

Julian gave a cursory nod in Caitlin’s direction. “I do have quite a considerable amount of work to get through.”

“Is someone going to take me back to my cell?” asked Rip.

Barry exchanged a look with Caitlin, she was definitely suppressing an eye roll.

“I’ll take you back to your room,” said Barry. “Come on.” He gestured in the direction of the lab.

Rip got to his feet, his shoulders hunched over and eyes on the ground. He followed behind Barry with a sigh.

***

About an hour after what Caitlin had referred to as “group therapy”, the man Rip had been introduced to as Julian Albert knocked on his door. He put down the colouring book, which had become surprisingly well coloured over the last few days and looked up.

“Mr Albert,” said Rip.

“Mr Hunter,” replied the forensic scientist. “May I come in? I’m told that it’s important to ask.”

“Ah, you have been briefed on my situation somewhat further then?”

“A little. I gather much of it is confidential.”

“Please, do come in. I would offer you a seat, but as you can see, I don’t have one to offer,” said Rip.

Julian smiled and entered the room, hands in his pockets. “What I have to say won’t take long. Where are you from?”

“Originally? North London. What about you?”

“Leatherhead, Surrey.”

Rip gave a nod. “Not a bad part of the country in this particular era.”

“I confess to finding it somewhat comforting to hear an English accent again,” said Julian. “I haven’t been home for some time, and these Americans speak so slowly.”

Rip smiled knowingly. “Yes, it is rather frustrating, but you seem to have found a home here.”

Julian bent his head to one side with a twitch of his bottom lip. “I suppose I have. It didn’t always work like this though. When I first met Barry, I thought he was an annoying idiot, but he helped me, even though I was the enemy and I’d never shown him the slightest regard. And Caitlin… Caitlin made sure that I wasn’t alone with what I’d done. She knew I needed a friend.”

“I’m glad for you, Mr Albert,” said Rip. “If only my own problems were so easily solved.”

“I didn’t say that it had solved my problems, but it has helped me to feel them less badly. By the sounds of things, you’ve got that too, and I don’t mean just Barry and Caitlin. You’ve got a team who went out of their way to bring you here so that you could get better. Maybe focus on that rather than what you’ve lost. I wish I’d had that when my sister died. Maybe if I had then I wouldn’t have let Alchemy in.”

Rip frowned. “You might be right. But I don’t know if I can forgive myself for what I did to them. I don’t know if I have it in me.”

“You don’t have to forgive yourself. It wasn’t you. I know that because I’ve been where you are now. The only thing you need to do is believe that it really wasn’t you. It was a different mind in your body. Your memories make you who you. If they changed those, well, you’re not who you are any longer. Caitlin tells me you’re a clever chap, so you _do_ know this. You’re just choosing not to believe it and I can only think of one reason why that is: you want to take the blame.”

Rip rolled his eyes. “Everyone is suddenly an amateur psychologist.”

Julian gave him a knowing smile. “You’re not a murderer, Rip. Work out why you think you deserve it and then you’ll be able to forgive yourself, because this wasn’t you and there’s nothing to forgive.”

Rip shook his head. “I am responsible for my own actions.”

“When they _are_ your own actions. If either Caitlin or Barry believed that you really were a murderer then you wouldn’t be in this nice guest room, you’d be down in the pipeline with the other murderers. Believe me, I know, because I’ve been there.”

“They locked you up?” asked Rip, a little surprised.

“Of course, because they didn’t know I had been blacking out and losing control. But you see, the thing is, that as soon as they worked that out, they let me go. Because in this day and age, you can’t lock someone up for murder if they were under duress, or coercion, or mind controlled by an evil speedster. Maybe it’s different where you come from.”

“It isn’t,” said Rip. “At least not aboard the Waverider.”

“So, if any of your crew had done what you did, you’d forgive them and move on, but you’re the exception?”

Rip gave Julian a tired look. “It’s a point that has been made before.”

“Good, I expect Caitlin is much better at this than I am.”

“She certainly has a more congenial bedside manner,” replied Rip, dryly.

Julian smiled. Then frowned. “Is that a Doctor Who colouring book?”

Rip felt a slight flush of embarrassment. “Er, yes. Part of my therapy. It’s supposed to be calming.”

“You know that Cisco is a huge fan?”

“We’ve been watching it together when I can’t sleep. I’d never seen it before. I assume that you’re familiar with it?”

“Oh yes, my sister and I used to hide behind the sofa together during the scary bits and then pretend to be daleks. It drove my mother mad.” It was clearly a fond memory of his.

Rip allowed himself a slight smile. “I can only imagine.”

“How far have you got?”

“We’re onto the second series of the Tenth Doctor,” said Rip.

“Really? I haven’t watched those in quite some time. Right, I must get back to work.” Julian turned to go.

“Julian,” said Rip, and then hesitated. “I’m truly sorry about your sister. If there was any way that I could bring her back to you then I would.”

Julian gave him a sad nod, “I appreciate the sentiment, Hunter,” and left him to his colouring.

That night, when Rip couldn’t sleep, he was completely unsurprised that Julian somewhat sheepishly asked if he could join him and Cisco for their now standard Doctor Who marathon. The three of them watched episodes, ate popcorn, poked holes in the lack of science and discussed the physics of real time travel, and Rip felt almost happy. As his eyes closed and he drifted off into dreams and not nightmares, he realised for the first time in a while that maybe he did have something to live for and perhaps Caitlin’s group therapy had been exactly what he needed to show him that.


	6. The Great Captain Rip Hunter

Caitlin opened the door to Rip’s room with an elbow, with the customary breakfast tray in her hands. It had the usual array of breakfast foods and tea on it, plus the medication which she’d prescribed to help Rip with the nausea he’d been experiencing every time he ate. That at least seemed to be working and Rip was eating much more normally now, although he was still thinner than Caitlin would have liked.

Rip put down the book he’d been reading, jumped off the bed and took it from her hands as she tried to wrestle with shutting the door behind herself and not dropping the tray.

“I’ve got it,” said Rip, placing it on the bedside table. “You get the door.”

Caitlin went to shut the door and then hesitated. “Actually, I think you’ve been locked in for long enough. You’ve been here a week and half. I think some supervised time outside your room is in order and perhaps a little trust on our part.”

Rip, who had been pouring tea, put the teapot down carefully. He looked at the open door, took the cup of tea and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Are you certain that’s a good idea? I’m not sure that I even know myself how I’ll feel from day to day.”

“Yes, but I think you’d be more likely to tell me how you’re feeling before you do something now. It feels like you’re finding it easier to talk to me.”

It had been two days since their group therapy session, and Rip had definitely made progress in that time. He was retreating into his own head less and actually making an effort to participate in their therapy sessions. Whilst her attempts to get him to talk more about his family had somewhat stalled, she hoped that he at least knew now that the door was always open for him to discuss them.

Rip nodded. “I am. I actually found it useful to hear from Mr Albert about how he’d been dealing with his Savitar issue.”

“Yeah, he’s still got a little work to do too, but he’s getting there,” said Caitlin. “He’s actually very strong and much less of a dick once you get to know him.”

Rip laughed, and Caitlin grinned. She didn’t think she’d ever heard Rip laugh like this. The occasional bark of ironic laughter at his own expense, but he hadn’t openly laughed at something someone had said since he’d been here. She definitely got the impression that, whilst not gone, the clouds were lifting today.

“In this case, his blunt turn of phrase was rather useful in jerking me out of my own self-pity,” said Rip. “But even that wouldn’t have been possible without your continued perseverance to point out that my thinking is flawed in a number of ways. It meant that I recognised truth when I heard it. Something which hasn’t been particularly easy for me these past couple of weeks.”

Rip drank his tea and took the pills that Caitlin shook out, putting the rest in her pocket. She still wasn’t going to put temptation in his way, but she needed to give him some freedom now.

“I think you might be ready for me to show you something,” said Caitlin.

“That sounds ominous,” said Rip.

Caitlin gave him a quick shake of her head. “Not at all. I just didn’t think it would make any difference until you were ready to acknowledge what it meant.” She looked up towards the camera. “Cisco, can you bring up the brain images we discussed.”

“Sure, give me a second,” Cisco said, over the speakers. He was on monitoring duty this morning.

A moment later two brain images appeared on the monitors behind Rip’s bed. Rip frowned at their familiarity. “Are those scans taken by Gideon?”

Caitlin nodded. “I asked Sara for your medical records. Well, before you get worried, Gideon refused to give them up, but she did provide me with what she regarded to be the salient points that I would need to help in your treatment. Including the before and after brain scans that she took.”

“Okay,” said Rip. “How is this of interest to me?”

“Well, this is a pretty sophisticated scan so I asked Gideon if she could tell me what I was looking at and provide me with some normal scans for comparison. She provided me with the scans for the crew, taken when they were injured at various points. I wanted to check something specific.”

“And what was that?” asked Rip, with a little defensiveness in his tone.

“What the percentage variance in patterns is between two different people. It isn’t as much as you’d think, basically about a 10 to 30% difference in pattern separates one individual from another and you can use brain patterns like finger prints. They’re all different. Everyone has a distinctive pattern, and yours changed. This is the pattern Gideon took when she healed you after your injury at Camelot,” she said and pointed at the brain image on the left. Rip visibly flinched at the word Camelot.

“What’s wrong?” she asked

He shook his head as if he was trying to shake something loose. “It’s nothing. I just had a flash of memory from after leaving Camelot, of being restrained in the medical chair as Gideon did her work and being indifferent to the outcome as she sedated me. My team still treated my injuries even though I’d tried to kill them only hours before. I remember wondering why they were bothering. My thoughts were so twisted that I couldn’t understand their care for me.”

Caitlin nodded, and noted that Rip was beginning to talk differently about his experiences whilst he had been controlled by Thawne. He was discussing it as if his thinking had not only been wrong, but also not something that he would normally have thought, and that was what Caitlin needed to encourage. She needed to get Rip to realise the distance between who he was now and who he was when his memories had been altered.

“You know that your team always have your back,” said Caitlin. “Even when you’re not yourself, they’ll still be there for you.”

Rip nodded. “My apologies, I interrupted you.”

“It’s okay. If you need to take a minute then we can.”

Rip shook his head. “You were about to tell me about the other brain scan.”

“Okay, this,” she pointed to the right, “this is your brain image just before you woke up after Sara and Jax restored your memories. There’s an 18% difference between the two patterns. That makes you two different people. It literally wasn’t you, Rip, and I have the science to prove it.”

Rip was staring at the brain patterns, his forehead furrowed in thought. “You’re saying that Evil Rip’s brain patterns were different?”

“Exactly. Think about what you told me. You said that you enjoyed the lack of responsibility and you liked hurting people. You told me that it was liberating and that you could finally forget your grief for your family. Is that really the person you are, Rip? Do you really want to hurt your friends or forget your family?”

Rip gave Caitlin a long look. His green eyes were intense, as if they were trying to discern what she was thinking. Then he turned away.

“No, I clearly didn’t… don’t… want any of those things,” he said, in barely more than a whisper. He was quiet for a moment, and Caitlin just let him be as he processed what he’d just said. Then she noticed that his eyes were being drawn to the shaft of sunlight on the floor of the room.

“I’ll give you some time to eat breakfast and then I think we should get you out of here. It’s a nice day outside. We could go for a walk. There’s a park nearby.”

Rip nodded. “Whatever you think best, Doctor Snow.”

“No, this is entirely up to you. Would you like to get outside for a bit?”

Rip took a sip of his tea and appeared to think about it. “Yes, I think I would like that very much.”

“Okay, I’ll go and find us some coats.”

By the time Caitlin came back with their coats and boots, Rip had finished two rounds of toast with jam and was putting on a jacket. It did Caitlin good to see him enthusiastic about something, and when she walked him out of STAR Labs and down the short path to the park, Rip walked like someone who had never been outside before. He looked around himself, taking everything in.

The park was sunny but cold, so Caitlin had found Rip a navy-blue winter coat which had been Barry’s, some woollen gloves and a scarf to go over the rather light jacket that he’d brought from the Waverider. She’d discovered over the course of the last week that Rip didn’t like the cold and always seemed to prefer to wear multiple layers.

“I realise that this is going to sound somewhat needy, but do you know when exactly my team are planning to come back?” he asked, as they walked.

“Not exactly, but I told them two weeks,” said Caitlin, “so they’ve got a few more days before they’re late.”

“Assuming that they do come back,” said Rip.

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“Maybe they decided that they don’t need me. Sara seemed to be doing well as their captain.”

Caitlin just stopped and looked at him with mild disappointment. Rip rolled his eyes, looked up at the sky and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Okay, yes, they’re coming back for me. Forgive me for the self-doubt, Doctor Snow, but you have to appreciate that I’m somewhat apprehensive about my return.” He met her eyes again, and she could see the worry in them.

“That’s normal, Rip, but at least you’re thinking about going back. It’s a sign that you’re starting on the road to recovery,” said Caitlin.

“Maybe,” said Rip.

“Hey, you know this is a long process,” said Caitlin. “You’re not going to get better in a couple of weeks.”

Rip’s shoulders slumped just a little. “I am aware, but time travellers aren’t a very patient lot.”

“I’d noticed,” said Caitlin, with a small smile.

Rip stifled a yawn. “Sorry. Sleep is still eluding me at any practical hour.”

“I could give you some sleeping pills. Sleep deprivation can’t be making you feel good. The pills might help enough to get you through the worst of the nightmares and let you get some rest so that you can tackle everything else without being so tired all the time.”

“And miss my nightly Doctor Who marathon with Mr Ramon and Mr Albert, I think not,” replied Rip, with a slight twinkle to his eyes. Caitlin was certain that wasn’t the reason why he was turning down her offer, but she let him get away with it.

“Apparently we’ll be watching an episode entitled “Blink” tonight which both Mr Ramon and Mr Albert seem to speak very highly of,” said Rip. “I find myself looking forwards to it and I have not looked forwards to _anything_ for quite some time.”

“I agree that it is a good one,” said Caitlin.

“I had no idea that you were also a fan,” said Rip.

“Maybe not on Cisco’s level, but how else could I have known to get you the colouring book?”

“Which again, I feel I owe you an apology about. I admit that I was somewhat sceptical about its usefulness…”

“You wanted to throw it at me,” stated Caitlin, which was possibly a slight exaggeration, but not much.

“And the crayons too,” confirmed Rip.

“Then you exercised impressive self-control,” smiled Caitlin.

“Quite frankly, when I arrived here I was beyond lost, and I never would have considered something so frivolous to be quite so effective at calming frayed nerves. It is a useful distraction exercise that also allows me to order my thoughts,” said Rip.

“Well, it was either that or I taught you to knit,” said Caitlin. “Or we could have tried some art therapy but I’m not terribly artistic myself so this seemed like a good compromise. I suspect the subject matter did help to get you started though.”

Rip nodded and rewarded Caitlin with a slight smile. They walked on, discussing Rip’s favourite episodes so far, making small talk rather than trying to work through more therapy issues. The park was mostly green space, with a pond, a playground and a wooded area towards one end. Rip’s eyes lingered on the playground, watching the children playing and running about.

“Missing Jonas?” she asked.

“Always,” replied Rip. “I do appreciate that you’ve given me the gift of being able to talk about him again. He was getting slightly too old for these kinds of playgrounds, although if none of his friends were about, he didn’t seem to care. He loved to climb.”

“Trees too?”

“Oh, yes, he’d have loved this,” Rip waved a hand at the park in general.

He lapsed into silence, and Caitlin decided to leave him to his thoughts. Then she had an idea, which was at least partly about continuing to get any kind of nourishment that she could into her patient.

“We could stop for coffee,” said Caitlin. “There’s a coffee cart on the other side of the park.”

Rip nodded his assent. “That would be nice.”

It was unfortunately at this point that they rounded a corner into a more densely wooded area and two men jumped out of the bushes in front of them. Caitlin immediately recognised them as two of Savitar’s henchmen. Caitlin stopped abruptly and Rip picked up that something was wrong.

“Do you know these gentlemen?” asked Rip.

“Sort of,” said Caitlin, reaching into her pocket and trying to feel for her phone.

The two men produced guns simultaneously, and Caitlin felt her blood run cold. This was a dangerous situation to be in and her phone was not in her pocket where she’d thought it was. If she could get to her phone then she’d be able to press the panic button and Barry or Wally would be there to help them in milliseconds.

“Take off the bracelets,” said the first man. “This isn’t who you’re supposed to be.”

“No,” said Caitlin.

“Then we’ll do it for you,” said the other man.

Rip took a step in front of Caitlin. “I think not. Now, I suggest you leave before I have to do something that you’ll both regret.”

The men smirked.

“You and whose army?” said the first one.

“I doubt that I would need an army to deal with the likes of you,” replied Rip, straightening.

“Rip, they have guns,” said Caitlin.

“Yes, they do. It’s a shame that they’re not loaded,” said Rip.

Inevitably, one of the men looked down at his gun, which was when Rip closed the distance between them and punched him. The two fought for control of the weapon, and the partner of the first man turned his attention away from Caitlin as he tried to decide whether to shoot at the scuffle and risk hitting his friend.

Caitlin didn’t need to be told to make the most of the distraction. She emptied her bag out on the ground, crouched down and grabbed her phone, thumbing the panic button with relief just as a gun went off. Her head snapped up, searching for Rip and the attacker. There was a blur of yellow lightning and Barry and Wally stood with one attacker and a gun each. In seconds, Barry had tied up their assailants.

Caitlin caught sight of Rip, lying on the ground only a couple of metres away from her. He was breathing hard and not getting up.

“Rip!” she half ran and half scuttled across the distance between them. He had squeezed his eyes shut, as if he was in pain. “Rip? Are you hurt?”

“I think… I may… quite possibly…have been shot,” said Rip, breathlessly.

“Where?” asked Caitlin.

Barry was standing with them in half a heartbeat. “Anyone hurt?”

“Rip,” said Caitlin.

Rip groaned, trying to push himself up off the ground. “Left arm.”

Caitlin pushed him back down, and quickly inspected the arm in question. She found a spreading patch of blood on Rip’s bicep, soaking into his coat, around a bullet sized hole, and a pool of blood collecting on the ground.

“We need to get him back to STAR Labs,” said Caitlin. “It looks like it’s a through and through, but it did a lot of damage as it went.”

Barry nodded. “Wally, get them to CCPD, I’ll take Caitlin and Rip back to the lab.”

“Okay,” said Wally, and disappeared with two crooks in tow.

“Take Rip first and then come back for me,” said Caitlin, “and let Cisco know that we have a medical emergency.”

Barry nodded and was gone with Rip. Then, seconds later, he was back for Caitlin. In a blur of yellow lightning she stood in the middle of one of the side labs, with Cisco approaching and her patient in front of her.

“The two of you went out for a walk!” said Cisco, in amazement. “How did you end up getting shot?!”

Rip had been deposited on the lab’s medical gurney, and was once again trying his best to sit up.

“Two of Savitar’s henchmen jumped us. I’ll give you the full story when I’ve stopped the bleeding,” said Caitlin, grabbing a pair of blue latex gloves and snapping them on. “Stay down, I need to fix your arm.”

“Urgh,” groaned Rip, lying back. “21st Century firearms, just my luck.”

“Help me get his coat and jacket off,” said Caitlin, and both Barry and Cisco pitched in, helping to hold Rip up enough that they could get his clothes off without jarring the injury. It was still clearly quite painful for Rip. Caitlin grabbed a vial of pain relief and drew up a dose.

“Rip, do you have any allergies that I should know about?” asked Caitlin.

“No,” he replied, his good hand wiping across his eyes.

“Sharp prick,” she said, just to give him a warning.

She pushed up the sleeve of his t-shirt, swabbed the area with alcohol and stabbed him with the needle, dispensing the medication into his system. Rip winced. Cisco and Barry had also put on gloves and were ready to help now. She handed Cisco a gauze pad and grabbed the electrodes to monitor heart rate, sticking the pads under Rip’s t-shirt on his chest. His heart rate was a little fast but that was understandable, and so far nothing to get worried about.

“Elevate and apply pressure,” Caitlin directed, knowing that Cisco would understand. Getting the wound above the heart would slow blood loss. They’d treated enough injuries in STAR Labs that they were all getting pretty good at trauma care, although usually it was for Barry, which presented its own problems.

“That’s a lot of blood,” said Cisco, as he wrapped the gauze pad around the wound and Barry held the arm up. It was already soaking through the white gauze, and Caitlin handed him another to wrap around the first, as she readied an IV line.

“Yeah, we might need a transfusion,” said Caitlin.

Rip was looking a little out of it, possibly from blood loss but also partly because Caitlin hadn’t been stingy with the pain relief.

“Rip, do you know what blood type you are?”

“Gideon knows,” Rip mumbled, slurring slightly. His eyes closed for a couple of seconds, before blinking rapidly.

“Gideon isn’t here,” said Caitlin, and that detail hadn’t been in the notes which she had seen fit to pass on about her Captain.

“No idea,” said Rip. “I must remember to ask.”

Caitlin sighed and realised that she’d need someone to do a blood test before she could give Rip the right blood to replace what he’d lost, or use up some of their stock of O neg, but it was always better to transfuse the correct type if possible.

“Don’t worry,” said Barry, “we can find out. You’re doing fine.” He turned his eyes to Caitlin. “Do you want me to do an ISCM?”

He was talking about a blood cross match test. Caitlin nodded. Barry could use his super-speed and do it in half the time of anyone else. “Please, and you can go and grab a unit from the blood bank if it’s a type we don’t have in stores. I’ll start him on fluids and antibiotics in the meantime.”

Julian strode into the room with Wally a little behind him.

“I heard we had an emergency,” he said, grabbing gloves. “What can I do?”

Caitlin was very relieved to see him.

“Barry’s going to do a blood type cross match, can you take over elevating Rip’s arm?”

“No problem,” said Julian, swapping with Barry, who grabbed a syringe and started locating a vein on Rip’s right arm. He drew blood and super-speeded away to perform the required test. Luckily it wouldn’t take long for Barry to do what was necessary.

Rip’s eyes were closing again.

“Hey, no passing out,” said Caitlin. “Stay with us.”

“Sorry,” mumbled Rip, dragging his eyes open. “Still here.”

“Good, hang in there just a bit longer.”

Caitlin gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile as she started the IV line in a vein in the back of his right hand. She taped it down, checked it was running properly and then moved on to her next task. She went around the bed and took over from Cisco, removing the bandages so that she could assess the damage.

“That is a right mess, mate,” said Julian, looking down at Rip. “I thought you were just going for a walk.”

“Yes, well, men… guns…,” replied Rip, with annoyance.

“Cisco, can you get me a suture kit and the sterile saline to clean the wound,” she said and Cisco went to grab what was needed while Caitlin applied pressure again. Rip hissed in pain, apparently the painkillers weren’t enough to block it all out. “Sorry,” she said, “but pressure stops the bleeding.”

“I do know basic first aid,” Rip replied, mumbling again. “I really miss the Waverider.”

Cisco returned with the supplies and Caitlin started cleaning and stitching the wound, which looked like it was just as she’d thought, a through and through with no bullet in the wound. Rip was looking pale and Caitlin was getting concerned, but Barry zoomed back into the room with a unit blood.

“It turns out that time travellers are as common as it gets when it comes to blood groups,” said Barry, as he hung the bag on the IV stand and started the transfusion. “He’s O positive.”

Rip’s eyes flicked up towards the IV and he started to shiver. Cisco grabbed a blanket and tucked it around their patient.

“Blood loss, so much fun,” groaned Rip, between shivers. His eyes fell shut and his head rolled sideways.

“Rip?” asked Julian. The eyes stayed shut.

“It’s okay,” said Caitlin, “he just passed out. We’re replacing his lost blood and I think I’ve stopped the worst of the bleeding. It’s probably for the best now, he needs some rest.” She had moved on to dressing the wounds and was wrapping a bandage around Rip’s bicep. “I’m going to have to find him a sling.”

“So, what happened?” asked Barry.

“A couple of Savitar’s worshippers jumped us and they had guns. They told me to take my cuffs off because “this isn’t who I’m supposed to be”,” said Caitlin. She finished up her bandaging and pulled off her gloves.

“But you weren’t Killer Frost in Flashpoint,” said Barry.

“I know, but maybe they’re just hoping I’ll turn into her and kill all of you, or make the news item that you saw come true,” Caitlin shrugged, “I just don’t know.”

“How did Rip get a bullet through his arm?” asked Julian.

“He distracted them and jumped one of them, which meant that I could hit the panic button on my phone. The two of them were wrestling with the gun and it went off,” said Caitlin.

Everyone was standing around looking rather surprised by this news.

“He probably saved my life,” said Caitlin.

“The great, Captain Rip Hunter,” said Cisco, looking down at the pale, slightly shivering form in the bed beside them.

“Yeah, he’s pretty great,” said Barry. “And kind of stupid at the same time. He’s got no super powers and he decides to wrestle a man with a gun to the ground.”

“I got the impression that it wasn’t the first time he’d done something like that,” said Caitlin. The fluid way he’d uttered his distraction and then led into the punch suggested that he was practiced at dealing with armed men.

“Well, I expect if you’re hanging out with superheroes you have to keep up,” said Julian. “You did say that his team spoke highly of him. I’m guessing this kind of thing is why.”

Barry shrugged. “I’m not sure why we’re all so surprised. He’s a former Time Master, a guardian of time, imagine what that must be like.”

“We’re surprised, because to us he’s an Englishman who sleeps badly, drinks tea, beats Barry at chess on a regular basis, likes Dr Who, and uses sarcasm as a finely tuned disembowelling device,” replied Cisco.

“He has a point,” said Julian.

“Oh my god, I just realised that the Legends are going to kill us,” said Cisco, in horror. “We let their Captain get shot.”

“He’s going to be fine,” said Caitlin, looking at the monitors. “He’s already stabilising, and when they get back in a few days, he’ll be well on the mend.”

“Okay, but I am not going to be the one to tell Sara Lance,” said Cisco.

Barry gave him an amused look. “It’s okay, I’ll explain what happened. She’ll have to catch me before she can kill me.”

“Okay, everyone out of here for now,” said Caitlin. “I’m going to clean him up and get him changed into some fresh clothes. Then I’m going to take an x-ray of his arm just to make sure the bullet didn’t damage the bone. I’ll let you all know when he’s awake again.”

With nods and murmurs of agreement, they left Caitlin to her work.


	7. A Certain Level of Insanity

Rip woke up lying on a bed in a strange room that he didn’t immediately recognise. This would have panicked him in other circumstances, but it didn’t feel like a hostile location. He blinked groggily up at the ceiling and then lifted his head from the pillow to attempt a better look around. He felt tired, weak, and his left arm ached, but he was dressed in clean clothes and could feel that his arm was bandaged. He noticed that he’d been hooked up to an IV line, which explained the soreness in the back of his right hand. Beside his bed sat Caitlin, reading a tablet, which was when all the pieces of what had happened began to fall back into place. He groaned at the memory, which alerted her that he was awake.

“Hi there,” she said.

Rip looked up at Caitlin.

“Er, hi,” he replied. He tried to get the arm which didn’t ache into position to push himself up, but a hand on his chest stopped him immediately.

“Hey, not so fast,” said Caitlin. “You’ve been out for a couple of hours.”

He huffed out an annoyed breath and sank back into his pillows. He took stock of his body and realised that he was dressed in a STAR Labs sweatshirt that he hadn’t been wearing earlier, and was feeling a bit fuzzy, probably from the drugs he’d most likely been given to combat the pain of a gunshot wound. He still felt a little cold, which was almost certainly down to the blood loss.

“I can raise the head of the bed a little for you,” said Caitlin.

“Thank you,” said Rip, and felt Caitlin adjust the bed so that he could sit up a bit more and still lie back. She helped support him as he gently got himself repositioned.

“Better?”

He felt slightly dizzy from the movement, but it was passing. He nodded his thanks.

“How do you feel?”

“Pretty good for someone who got shot,” replied Rip. “Mainly tired.”

“Any pain?” she asked.

“It aches a bit, but the warm, fuzzy feeling that I’m experiencing suggests it could be a lot worse.”

“Yeah, I’ve got you dosed up on painkillers,” said Caitlin, confirming Rip’s suspicions. “It’s all stitched up and the wound should close nicely. I took an x-ray and the bone’s not broken, but it did damage some muscle so you’ll need to build that up again with some physio.” She paused and leaned on the bar around the edge of the bed. “You saved my life, Rip.”

“All in a day’s work,” replied Rip. “Besides, they were pointing the guns at me too, so I wasn’t being entirely altruistic.”

“I’m sorry for putting you in danger,” said Caitlin.

“It is most certainly not your fault that two armed men decided to attack us whilst walking in the park,” said Rip.

“But they were after me,” said Caitlin.

“I seem to remember being told off very recently for taking too much blame upon myself,” said Rip. “Physician, heal thyself.”

Caitlin gave him a slightly amused look, but nodded thoughtfully.

“Do you feel up to visitors?” she asked.

“I have visitors?” asked Rip.

Caitlin apparently took that as a “yes”, because she went to the door of the lab and called out, “guys, he’s awake.”

Barry, Cisco and Julian followed Caitlin back into the room.

“Dude, you need to learn to dodge bullets like Barry if you’re going to do this kind of stuff,” said Cisco.

“Yes, when I get my super-speed I’ll be sure to get on that,” replied Rip.

“Or we could just give him a phone with a panic button, like the ones we all have,” said Julian.

“That sounds like a good idea,” said Barry. “You are pretty much one of the team now.”

Rip looked perplexed. “Because I got shot?”

“Because you helped to take down two of Savitar’s goons,” said Caitlin.

“I hardly did anything,” said Rip. “Doctor Snow was the one with the forethought to call you. I merely acted as a temporary distraction to give you time to arrive.”

“Which seemed to work,” said Barry, grinning. “Welcome to Team Flash, Rip.”

Rip let out a short laugh of mild disbelief and then regretted it when it pulled on his injured arm. He winced slightly, making Caitlin look concerned but he shook his head to indicate that he was fine.

“I am truly honoured to be a part of it in whatever small way I can.”

“Good,” said Barry, “because we can’t thank you enough for keeping Caitlin safe.”

“Any of you would have done the same,” said Rip

“Oh no,” said Cisco, “you’re a special kind of crazy. No powers, no weapons, still takes on armed gun men.”

“Yes, well, you’ve met the rest of the Legends. I have a certain level of insanity to uphold,” said Rip, and yawned.

“Okay,” said Caitlin. “We need to let Rip get some rest. You can all come back for the team showing of Blink later if Rip’s feeling up to it.”

“Team showing of Blink?” asked Rip.

“We knew you’d been looking forwards to it, and it is a classic episode,” said Julian, “So we thought, rather than cancel it, we’d all watch it with you. Assuming you’re sufficiently recovered.”

Rip felt somewhat overwhelmed, but sort of in a good way. He was not at all used to this sort of behaviour from others when he was injured. In fact, usually on the times he’d been injured enough to use the medbay on the Waverider, he’d been alone. He’d had no team to look after him. Gideon had fixed him up and he’d gone back to work. That was when he’d been in his right mind and before the Legends had joined him. But his most recent stint in medbay had been after Camelot when they’d had to restrain him to treat him and then had returned him to the brig whilst still sedated, for their own safety. The only people to visit him had been Jax to tell him he wasn’t their Captain and Sara to ask where the last piece of the Spear was. He’d been shockingly rude to both of them.

“I’m sure I’ll be able to manage it after some sleep,” said Rip, shaking off the bad memories.

“That’s our cue to leave,” said Barry. “We’ll see you later.”

Rip nodded, and settled back against his pillows.

“How’s the pain?” asked Caitlin. “I can top up your pain relief.”

“It aches but that’s about all. I doubt it will keep me awake,” said Rip, his eyes already closing.

He felt Caitlin squeeze his good hand reassuringly, and then he drifted off to sleep.

***

Sara and Jax walked back onto the bridge of the Waverider. They had left a depressed and suicidal Rip Hunter with Team Flash only minutes ago. The other Legends were waiting for them on the bridge, ready to get on with the mission.

“How did it go?” asked Ray.

“They’ll take good care of him,” said Jax, sounding rather unhappy.

“Gideon, set a course for Central City two weeks from now,” said Sara.

“Yes, Captain,” said Gideon.

 “I was under the impression that we were heading to 1967 to collect the next Spear fragment,” said Martin.

“We’re going to go back for Rip first?” asked Ray. “Can we do that?”

“But the Legion could already have found my grandfather,” said Nate

Sara leaned on the central control console. “Look, I know we have a job to do, and I know what the stakes are, but I don’t want to do it without Rip on board. This is his ship and we’ve only just got him back. It feels wrong to abandon him here in 2017, while we just carry on.”

“The mission should come first though,” said Amaya.

“The mission will still be there if we take a short jump forwards to get Rip. Hopefully he’ll be feeling better and he can come and join us properly again,” said Sara. “We need all the help we can get.”

“Yeah,” said Jax. “No one knows this ship like him and, I hate to say it, he knows more about time travel than any of us.”

“And he also happens to be handy in a fight and one of the most honourable men that I know,” said Ray. “I mean he put his own life at risk to save New York, and time scattered all of us to keep us safe.”

“Yeah, well, I’d like to have words with him about that,” said Sara. “He could have chosen nicer time periods.”

“But he did it for the right reasons,” said Martin.

Ray gave a half shrug. “I kind of liked the Jurassic, even if it was a bit lonely, well apart from Gertrude.”

"Gertrude?" asked Sara, and then shook her head. "No, I don't want to know."

“I want him back, he has all the good alcohol,” chipped in Mick.

“If Rip gets back and you’ve drunk all his best whiskey, he is going to kill you,” said Sara, looking daggers at Mick.

Mick looked offended that she would even suggest such a thing as he took a swig of his beer. “He’s welcome to try. Again.”

Sara rolled her eyes, and turned to the rest of the team. “So, are there any objections to us just jumping two weeks ahead and collecting our former Captain?”

There were a series of shakes of heads around the table.

“Okay. Gideon, make the jump, please. Actually, take us back a day early.”

“Yes, Captain Lance.”

The Legends took their seats and went to collect their missing team member.

***

Rip felt very unsettled by “Blink” because the Weeping Angels were about the scariest thing that he’d seen in ages. He wasn’t sure that he could think of anything worse than the fate of their victims. At least they didn’t appear again for a while. However, what he did enjoy was the entirety of Team Flash keeping him company for an evening, accompanied by pizza and hot chocolate. The hot chocolate that Caitlin presented him with was covered in cream and marshmallows, which she had declared compulsory for someone recovering from blood loss. Rip did not complain and managed to get through several slices of pizza.

He was in the centre of the party, with furniture dragged into the room around his bed. Caitlin had fitted him with a sling for his injured arm, which was definitely helping with the pain although putting him slightly off-balance. The TV had been set up at a good angle for everyone and Joe and Iris had arrived with the food, followed by the final member of the group that he’d yet to meet: HR Wells.

HR had a pair of drumsticks in his pocket that he would wave around when he talked and wore a waistcoat over his t-shirt. However, after a very brief chat with him, the group seemed to be determined to keep him away from Rip. Which was possibly because HR seemed to have a talent for putting his foot in his mouth, and they didn’t think Rip would be able to deal with that whilst still recovering from a gunshot wound. They were probably right about that.

The huge mountain of pizza that had been ordered put actual Italian restaurants to shame, and disappeared quickly. Rip could have sworn that Barry was on his tenth entire pizza, and Wally had possibly eaten more, before either of them came up for air. Speedsters had fast metabolisms and needed more fuel than normal people.

“Sorry,” said Barry, between mouthfuls. “When I first got my speed, I used to pass out from low blood sugar until Caitlin worked out that I wasn’t eating enough. Cisco made me some protein bars so I don’t have constantly eat this kind of volume, but occasionally it’s nice to get my energy from proper food.”

“No need to apologise,” said Rip. “I’ve just never seen anyone eat that much pizza in one go.”

“So, now that Rip is officially a member of Team Flash, I’ve been thinking about suit designs,” said Cisco.

There was a good-natured groan from all those assembled.

Rip rolled his eyes. “I don’t need a suit and I think the Legends would laugh themselves silly if I turned up wearing one.”

“Time Masters don’t wear super-suits?” asked Cisco, somewhat disappointed.

“Time Masters _wore_ uniform,” said Rip, emphasising the past tense, since the organisation had come to rather an abrupt end, “or at least we were supposed to when we were on base at the Vanishing Point, or training. Captains did not have to observe the same regulations and of course we needed to blend in to any time period we visited, so a super-suit would not have been appropriate. Not that it stops the Legends doing it anyway.” He sighed. “Besides, as you so kindly pointed out, I have no superpowers.”

“Armour, then,” suggested Cisco.

“Not of much use when I’m in the field because I wouldn’t want to risk losing it and contaminating the past,” said Rip. “Honestly, I don’t usually get hurt much, and Gideon is quite capable of fixing any injuries.”

“As long as you get back to the Waverider,” said HR, handing round buckets of popcorn. “What happens when you don’t make it back and get left bleeding on a street in…” he thought for a moment, “1980s TSR?”

“TSR?” asked Rip.

“Trans Siberian Republic. You didn’t have that here then? Really nasty time period on Earth 19. Giant beetles and rodents running amok.”

Everyone looked blankly at him with mild puzzlement, and possibly some slight alarm.

“Luckily, I have a team to ensure that I get back to the Waverider these days,” said Rip, deciding to ignore the idea of a period of history where giant beetles were a pivotal part of whatever had transpired.

“It’s got to be better than being alone,” said Julian, who sounded very much like he was speaking from experience.

“There are days when I do wonder about that,” said Rip. Usually those days were when he walked into the galley to find that no one had loaded the dishwasher for a week and he’d been too busy to notice. The Waverider was his home and sharing it with a group of superheroes wasn’t always easy. “But,” he added, thoughtfully, “I do believe I wouldn’t be without my band of misfits.”

“Likewise,” said Barry, grinning.

“Are you calling us misfits?” asked Joe.

A chorus of “hey!” came from the assembled Team Flash members and Barry found himself pelted with the popcorn that had just been handed round.

“I thought this was supposed to be a Doctor Who marathon,” said Cisco. “One episode does not a marathon make. Please, stop throwing stuff at Barry so that I can get the next episode cued up.”

“Are you okay for more?” Caitlin asked Rip, quietly, while everyone else was getting settled for the next episode and Barry was picking popcorn out of his hair. “You’re looking a little tired.”

“I think I could manage at least one more,” said Rip. “Besides, at the moment, I fall asleep more easily around people.”

“You’re sure this isn’t all too much for you?” said Caitlin.

“I promise, I’ll let you know if it is,” said Rip, “now, you had best take your seat, Doctor Snow, we’re about to get started.”

“Given that you saved my life today, don’t you think you should start calling me Caitlin?”

“Are we resuming therapy sessions tomorrow?” asked Rip.

“As long as you’re feeling up to it,” replied Caitlin, frowning slightly at what she apparently considered to be a non-sequitur.

“In that case, I believe shall continue to call you Doctor Snow for a little while longer if you don’t mind,” said Rip. Somehow the separation between therapist and friend had become important and it was easier to talk to her as his therapist. He didn’t think losing that would help him now.

Caitlin nodded. “You call me whatever you need to for however long you need to, Rip.”

“Only three episodes to go until the end of the series,” declared Cisco, interrupting any further conversation. “HR, can you get the lights.”

Rip didn’t even make it past the first fifteen minutes before he was gently snoozing.

***

Rip felt well enough to be up and about the next day, and had slept relatively well. He was putting that down to sheer exhaustion, one good day was not going to equal the end of his nightmares, but he’d take what he could get. The door of his room stayed unlocked and whilst Caitlin was still keeping an eye on him, he could come and go as he pleased.

He swapped the STAR Labs sweatshirt for a clean t-shirt, negotiating his injured arm with only a small amount of difficulty, and realised that he was cold without the long sleeves. His only jacket now had a bullet hole in the arm and was covered in dried blood. He was trying to decide whether to just put the sweatshirt back on when Caitlin arrived for their usual morning therapy session, which he was not getting out of.

“Do you have another sweatshirt I could borrow?” he asked. “I’m feeling the cold at the moment.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I should have thought. Blood loss can make you feel cold and it could be a few days before your blood volume is properly replaced. I’ll see what we’ve got in the store cupboard,” said Caitlin, and left to see what she could do. She returned a few minutes later with two hooded tops with zip fronts and a couple of sweatshirts identical to the one he’d just taken off. Rip liked the look of the hooded tops better, at least partly because they had pockets for him to put his hands in and were easier to get over his sore arm, so he put one of them on. Caitlin helped him get the sling back on, and he finally felt ready to face the day.

“It suits you,” said Caitlin, and he smiled in reply. “So do you have anything you’d like to talk about today, or do you want me to suggest something?”

Rip sighed. Therapy was still hard even after over a week of talking through his problems, and if he was honest, he was still finding it hard to see how he moved on from this. He may not have been in control of what Evil Rip did (and yes, in his head he was thinking of him as Evil Rip now, so a step in the right direction), but he still had to deal with his actions and the memories of those actions. He still had to work out how he could forgive himself for allowing all of this to happen.

“Today is the first day I’ve woken up here and not thought about how many ways there are to end my life,” said Rip.

He could see that Caitlin had been expecting this at some point, but she still looked at him with something like pride in her eyes. And then, unexpectedly, she was hugging him and Rip didn’t know how or why, but he was crying. He was sobbing in a way that he’d never managed before, crying tears of relief and sorrow at the same time. There was nothing that could be done to undo what had been done to him, but he didn’t have to let it be the end of him, and that sudden realisation was powerful and disarming. It was frightening, because if he could move on from this, then he now had to find a way to actually do it.

Therapy dissolved into a box of tissues and Caitlin making him more hot chocolate in the lab kitchen, whilst he tried to explain just how scary the decision to live was. By the end of it he was worn out emotionally and physically, and Caitlin suggested that he nap before lunch, reminding him that he was still recovering from a gunshot wound. He didn’t need much prodding to do as he was told.

He was awoken by an alarm sounding. Force of habit had him up and searching for its source before he’d really even remembered where he was. His arm was hurting again, and the sling was still throwing him off balance. He stepped out of his room into the main lab. He found Cisco and Caitlin sat at their computers in the cortex with HR standing behind them, avidly watching the screens.

“Oh Rip, I’m so sorry,” said Caitlin, as he came in. “Did the alarm wake you? I forgot you’d hear it with the door open.”

“Yes. What’s going on?” He headed across the room to watch the screens.

“Three alarm fire,” said Cisco. “Flash and Kid Flash to the rescue. This is looking like a bad one.”

A live news report was on one of the screens and showed a tall building on fire. The news reporter was occasionally being drowned out by the sounds of yet more fire trucks arriving at the scene.

“We’ve been due something big for a while. It’s unusual for things to be this quiet around here,” said Caitlin.

“I expect Gideon picked this particular period for that very reason, although obviously she didn’t account for random walks in the park in that,” said Rip.

Barry’s voice came over the speakers. “Okay, we’re here. We’re going to start evacuating the building.”

“Great, Barry, this should be straight forwards,” said Caitlin.

“You jinxed it,” said Cisco.

“Did not,” said Caitlin, looking a little offended.

“I just pulled up the building plans and guess what this block is right next to,” said Cisco.

Caitlin looked over. “I _did_ jinx it.”

“Barry, you have to get everyone away from the west side of the building first. You’re right next door to a propane gas storage facility.”

“Or you could move those gas bottles somewhere safe,” said HR. “No heating, no explosion.”

“Good idea,” said Cisco. “Wally, you get that? Get those gas bottles moved somewhere safe while Barry gets the people out.”

“Copy that,” said Wally. “Any suggestions for where?”

“Er… the harbour. That’s cool and there’s plenty of room.”

The news feed now had twin yellow lightning streaks flashing across its screen. Rip watched it with fascination. Julian walked into the room reading something on a tablet, with a pencil and notebook clutched in his other hand.

“Hunter,” said Julian, when he saw Rip. “How’s the arm?”

“A little sore but otherwise fine,” said Rip. “Not helping with the fire?”

“They can handle this without my input and they’ve been doing it a lot longer than I have. I’ve learnt not to interfere with their well-oiled machine when it comes to routine call outs. My expertise is not going to be of much use here,” said Julian, heading across the cortex to one of the computer labs. “No, I have other things to attend to, such as dealing with Savitar.” He gave Rip an appraising look. “In fact, you might be able to help.”

He beckoned Rip over towards a glass board with some things written on it. “These were the things that Barry saw when he ran into the future. Barry thinks that if we can change enough of them then Iris won’t be killed by Savitar. Perhaps we could have your professional opinion on that.”

Rip frowned at the board. It was a rather random collection of headlines, but one caught his eye.

“Killer Frost…” he murmured. “Caitlin?” he asked, turning to Julian.

Julian glanced back towards the woman in question, who was currently directing Barry to more potential fire victims with a cool professionalism.

“But she has the power dampening cuffs and pendant,” said Rip. “And, well, she’s Caitlin.”

“I know,” said Julian. “But I’ve seen her transform when she uses her powers, and she becomes a totally different person. So far we’ve always been able to bring her back, but we’re left with the inescapable situation where this was a headline in the future.”

“Have you considered the possibility that it isn’t our Caitlin?” asked Rip.

“Of course, but the Killer Frost from Earth 2 is dead,” said Julian.

“There is a big, wide, multiverse out there,” said Rip. “Equally, you could already have prevented it from happening. As soon as you become aware of a possible future, that in itself changes something. You’ve already introduced a new variable into the system.”

Julian tapped his pencil on his lips. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“You like her?” asked Rip.

“Is it that obvious?” asked Julian, with a touch of dismay.

Rip shrugged. “There appears to be a mutual attraction. Speaking as someone who lost the woman that I loved too soon, I’d suggest you act now and make the most of whatever time you have. And potentially, having someone that she cares about will make it harder for her to become Killer Frost. It’s like I said before, having people you care about tethers you and makes it harder to see people as just problems to be dealt with, or impediments to one’s goals. Giving her someone to love may be all that’s needed to stop her from becoming Killer Frost.”

Julian let out a long sigh. “But it would be wrong to form a relationship for that reason.”

“You’re not though, are you? Have you asked her out yet?”

“We went for drinks a couple of nights ago,” said Julian.

“Then this all started well before I suggested anything,” said Rip.

Julian gave him a dip of his head. “Okay, I’ll… er… think about it.”

Further conversation was interrupted by Joe walking into the cortex, beaming.

“Did you all just see my boys save a building full of people?” he asked, pointing at the TV screen.

“Yes, Joe,” said Cisco, good naturedly. “We _were_ helping them.”

“I still cannot get over the fact that I have two hero sons,” said Joe, still grinning.

Wally and Barry ran into the room a few seconds later, smelling of smoke and burnt masonry. They both looked hot, dirty and tired.

“Hey, well done, guys,” said HR. “You saved…” he checked a screen. “Wow. You saved 89 people today.”

Barry and Wally high fived.

“Couldn’t have done it without the team,” said Barry. “I’d never have got around that building fast enough without that route you gave me, Cisco.”

“Or found that tiny girl hiding in the bedroom without Caitlin reminding me to check the closets,” said Wally.

“And if those propane tanks had exploded…,” said Barry.

“It was HR’s suggestion to get them moved,” said Caitlin.

“Go Team Flash!” said HR, with more enthusiasm than was really required. “How do you guys celebrate a huge victory on this Earth? Normally I’d phone up for an elephant parade but that doesn’t seem like something that happens here.”

Barry grinned, taking off his mask. “Er, no, we don’t have elephant parades, and some of us have to get back to work.”

“Yes, me too,” said Julian. “We’ll have to continue our conversation another time,” he added, turning to Rip.

Rip nodded in agreement, still examining the board for any clue that could help Team Flash with their Savitar problem, but if there was anything to see, it eluded him. Perhaps even a Time Master couldn’t help here, at least not without further information. If he had been back on the Waverider…

Unbidden, Rip was assailed with a memory of hunting Jax through the darkened corridors of the Waverider. Hunting Jax so that he could kill him and take the fragment of the Spear from him. How were his team ever going to forgive him? Then he realised that people had kept talking while he was busy, lost in his thoughts. His breathing had quickened and he’d backed away from Julian, unable to shake the memory that he was reliving.

“Rip?” asked Caitlin, coming towards him. She seemed to have realised that something was wrong. “Do your breathing exercises if you need to.”

Rip shook his head.

“They’re never going to be able to forgive me,” said Rip, all his good feeling evaporating.

“Who?” asked Caitlin.

“My team. I tried to kill them.”

“Yeah, me too, mate,” said Julian, also approaching, his tone surprisingly gentle. “But it wasn’t us and they did forgive me.”

Caitlin and Julian exchanged a quick look, but Rip was finding it hard to stay in the present because his brain was pulling him back to the American Revolution. His eyes were unfocused and he couldn’t see the room or the people with him. He had his right hand in front of him, palm spread wide to keep people away.

“I was going to shoot Jax.”

“Not you, Rip,” said Barry.

“You saved Caitlin’s life yesterday. Would he have done that? The man who tried to kill your team?” asked Julian.

Rip shook his head. “No. He’d have let her die.”

“But you saved me,” said Caitlin. “You’re a good man, Rip. You save lives, you don’t take them.”

“Do I?” he asked, with a half laugh at his own expense.

“Yes, god damn it!” said Julian, crossly. “You can’t be both people, and yesterday, you saved Caitlin’s life by putting your own in danger. That’s what heroes do.”

“I’ve _never_ called myself a hero,” said Rip, lowering his arm and instead wrapping it around himself.

Joe stepped forwards. “Barry doesn’t either, but I’ve lost count of the number of people who are alive because of things he’s done. Now, I don’t claim to know everything you’ve done, but I do know that the world is still turning because the Legends exist and you assembled that team. So, to me that sounds like you’re a force for good, and those are the people we call heroes.”

Rip met Joe’s eyes briefly, and then looked down, embarrassed by the sentiment. “Thank you,” he mumbled.

“Actually,” said a voice from the doorway, “we prefer Legends.”

Sara Lance stood in the entrance, flanked by Ray Palmer and Mick Rory. The Legends were back to collect him.


	8. Remember Who You Are

Sara looked around the room, and focused on Rip.

“What the hell happened to your arm?” she asked. She turned her attention to Barry. “You were supposed to be looking after him.” She pointed at Rip.

“I told you so,” whistled Cisco.

“Not helping,” said Barry.

“I can look after myself, thank you,” said Rip, clearly annoyed.

“Okay,” said Joe. “That’s enough of that.” He looked rather unimpressed.

“It was my fault,” said Caitlin. “We went out for a walk and got jumped by some of Savitar’s worshippers.”

“It was not your fault, Caitlin!” said Rip, with exasperation.

“Hey, it’s okay,” said Caitlin.

“Is it? Is it really?” said Rip, angrily.

Sara frowned. This was not how she’d expected this to go. “I thought you’d be happy to see us,” she said. “We came to take you home.”

“I am aware of why you’re here, Ms Lance,” said Rip.

“ _Ms Lance_? We’re back to that. So, what did happen to your arm?” asked Sara, getting annoyed now.

“I got shot,” said Rip.

“You got shot?” she asked in disbelief.

“Yes, and I’m in no mood for a lecture from you. It’s really not that bad,” said Rip.

“It actually isn’t,” said Barry.

“I’m not talking to you,” said Sara.

Barry rolled his eyes.

“Maybe we should start again,” said Ray. “Hi everyone, how are you all doing? Beaten any fun metas lately?”

“Quite a few,” began HR. “Did we tell you about the holographic monsters?”

“I don’t like holograms,” ground out Mick.

HR took a step away from Mick. “Understandable, they were something of a problem to deal with.”

“That’s not why,” said Mick, looking pointedly at Rip.

Rip stared downwards and shoved his good hand in his pocket, looking just a little guilty. “I am going to go and pack.”

Rip stalked from the room, not looking terribly happy.

“Yes, well, I think I’ll leave you all to your goodbyes,” said Joe. “Do you want a lift back to CCPD, Julian?”

“Thank you, retreat seems like the best plan at this juncture. Tell Rip I said “bon voyage”,” said Julian.

Barry nodded tiredly.

“Yeah, I think I’ll get out of here too,” said Wally. “I want to run some laps of the track.”

“Great!” said HR, with rather false enthusiasm. “I’ll help you.” The two left the room in the direction of the speed lab.

Sara got the distinct impression that people were a little scared of her. Well, given that Rip had been hurt on their watch, they might just deserve to be. Sara walked around the desk, looked at Barry and Caitlin and rested her behind on the worktop.

“So, apart from the hole in his arm, how’s Rip?” asked Sara.

“Better,” said Barry.

“That’s all you’re going to give me?”

Barry shrugged. “I’m not sure how much he’d want me to say.”

“Patient confidentiality applies,” said Caitlin. “If he wants to tell you more then he can, but I can’t say anything without his permission. Sorry.” Caitlin looked a little nervous.

Ray folded his arms over his chest. “I guess we’ll have to take “better” as enough then.”

“Should have just done it my way and got him drunk,” said Mick, unhelpfully. “It always works for me.”

Sara gave Mick a disapproving look, before turning back to the others. “Ignore him.”

“I’d like to hand over Rip’s medical care to Gideon before you go,” said Caitlin.

“Sure,” said Sara. “We can take you on board and you can talk to her before we leave.”

“Thank you,” said Caitlin. “It’s going to be a little strange handing over to a computer, but since she’s the closest thing you have to a doctor on board, it seems appropriate.”

“And Gideon has a special place in her electronic heart for Rip,” said Sara. “She’ll make sure he’s okay.”

“You know, he’s something special, your former Captain,” said Barry, glancing back in the direction of the labs. “Crazy, but special.”

Sara grinned. “You noticed.”

“You got the crazy part right,” said Mick.

“You might have warned me that he’s a Chess Grand Master,” said Barry.

“No, he’s not,” scoffed Sara. She’d never seen him play chess even once. She wasn’t sure that he even owned a chess set.

“Yes, he is,” said Barry. “I didn’t win a single game, and he once beat me in 4 moves with a checkmate that I’d never seen done before.”

Ray’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. “Huh. He’s never mentioned that to us.”

“I guess it just never came up,” said Sara.

“And how come you never showed him Doctor Who?” asked Cisco, looking at Ray. “What kind of a geek are you?”

“I’ve always been more of a Star Wars fan,” said Ray, apologetically. “Actually, there’s a funny story about that…”

“Not now,” said Sara, who did not want to go into how they’d nearly erased Star Wars from history.

“I can’t believe that you guys don’t watch Doctor Who all the time,” said Cisco. “Anyway, we educated Rip for you in the ways of Doctor Who. You’re welcome.”

“Rip actually watched TV?” asked Sara, with surprise. Rip never watched TV with them on the Waverider.

“Yes, and he even enjoyed it,” said Cisco, folding his arms and leaning back in his chair.

“What? He actually sat down with other people and watched TV?” asked Sara.

“Yeah. Didn’t he ever do that with you guys?” asked Barry.

“No,” said Sara, frowning. “He’s always preferred his own company.”

Caitlin and Barry exchanged a look with Cisco.

“You guys need to get him to socialise with you more,” said Barry.

“Yeah, he likes board games too,” added Cisco.

“And hot chocolate,” said Caitlin.

“Hang on, you’re sure this is Rip Hunter you’re talking about?” said Sara, not believing what she was hearing. “The same guy who basically consumes tea, whiskey, and whatever food the fabricator spits out?”

“Also apparently likes hot chocolate…” said Ray, with mild disbelief.

“With whipped cream, and marshmallows,” confirmed Caitlin.

“It’s like we don’t even know him,” said Sara, with some incredulity.

“Maybe we don’t,” said Ray. “I mean how much has he ever really told us about himself?”

Sara shrugged. “He’s a very private person and I never wanted to pry. He was mourning his family.”

A strange look passed over Caitlin’s face as she said that, but was gone before Sara could decipher what it meant. She was wondering what Caitlin now knew about Rip that he’d never told anyone else. What had Rip told Caitlin that would have given her that look?

Barry shook his head. “Time Masters operated alone. I think he’s just used to it, and he always had his family to go home to. We didn’t give him much of a choice about it here because Caitlin didn’t think it was good for him to be left to brood on his own. But it must have been pretty lonely after Miranda and Jonas were killed. He only had Gideon for company.”

“I never thought about it,” said Sara. “He once told me that he wouldn’t wish the guilt of failing to save them on anyone. I knew he’d basically spent all his time obsessing over killing Savage, which I guess wasn’t terribly healthy, and then we had aberrations to hunt down and I went after Damien Darhk…”

“We never stopped to notice that all he did was work and drink and listen to that tape of their message…” said Ray.

“Yeah, yeah, we’re terrible friends,” said Mick. “Let’s just grab him and go. Who needs all this stuff anyway?”

“Next time, we’re leaving _you_ here with Doctor Snow,” said Sara. “You need your head examining more than Rip.”

“Do you think he needs a hand with packing?” asked Caitlin.

“I’ll go help him,” said Cisco, “he’s probably struggling with only one working arm.”

Cisco headed off to find their errant crew member, whilst Sara silently promised herself that she would do better with getting to know Rip after this. They’d make an effort to get him to leave his quarters between missions and not just for meals and research.

Cisco came dashing back into the room. “He’s not there, and he left this.” Cisco was brandishing a piece of paper.

Rip’s handwriting was beautiful, even in purple crayon. Each letter was perfectly formed, with looping descenders and rounded bowls, every lower case letter the same height, as if he’d written it with a ruler. His signature at the bottom of the page was practically a work of art. However, that was not what Sara was interested in. She read the text in disbelief and then read it again.

_Dear friends,_

_You have my sincerest apologies, but I find myself unable to return with you to the Waverider. Whilst I humbly seek your forgiveness for everything that my counterpart put you through, I know that I cannot expect it. Therefore, I must take my leave of you all. I ask that you return to the ship without me and continue your important work. Please, don’t look for me._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Rip Hunter (Capt. Ret.)_

“That moron!” said Mick, with considerable feeling.

“For once I’m in total agreement with Mick,” said Sara.

“We’re not going to let him do this, are we?” asked Ray.

“No,” said Barry, “we’re not,” with a vehement shake of his head.

“Did he even take any warm clothes?” asked Caitlin, always practical. “Speaking as his doctor, he’s overdue his next dosage of painkillers and his arm will probably be causing him considerable pain by now. And psychologically, well, without breaking confidentiality, I doubt he’s thinking particularly clearly about this at the moment for all sorts of reasons.”

“Well, he can’t have got far,” said Sara. “He’s injured and it wasn’t that long ago he went to pack.”

“I’ll go,” said Barry, “I can look faster than the rest of you. I’ll radio in when I’ve found him.”

“Okay,” said Sara. “I’ll spend the time you take to find him coping with this sudden urge that I have to punch him in the face for worrying us.”

“Good plan,” said Barry, and zoomed away, leaving a small gale behind him and a crackle of electricity.

***

Rip hadn’t bothered to pack, he’d just felt an undeniable urge to escape. He did not want to see Sara and the others right now, because none of that felt right. He quickly wrote a note for them to let them know that he didn’t want them trying to find him and left. He’d just walked straight out of the labs and through the front door.

He didn’t know Central City well, so he’d picked a direction and started walking. He had the clothes on his back and nothing else, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d slept rough or needed to make his way in a strange city with very little in the way of resources. He did regret not taking his painkillers before he left, but even that was manageable.

He was amongst some tall buildings in what appeared to be a business district, when he saw the familiar yellow lightning and felt the draft of The Flash zoom past him, then double back. Barry wasn’t running at anything like his full speed, probably because he was looking for someone. Rip sighed, already knowing that he had no time to hide or do anything to stop what was about to happen.

Barry skidded to a halt in front of him.

“Just how far did you really expect to get?”

Rip gave Barry a withering look. “I expected you to respect my wishes, but clearly that was a false expectation.”

“Where are you even going to go?”

Rip shoved his one good hand in his pocket. “I assure you that I am quite capable of looking after myself. I’ve been blending into whatever time period I needed to for more than a decade.”

“But you’ve always had the Waverider to go home to,” said Barry. “Why are you even doing this?”

“Because they’re better off without me,” spat Rip, crossly.

“You can’t possibly believe that,” said Barry.

Rip just looked at him. He really did.

Barry shook his head in disbelief. “Haven’t you got it by now? Your team care about you. Do you think they’d have asked us to help you if they didn’t?”

“It doesn’t matter. This isn’t about what they want.”

“Then what is it about? Doesn’t it tell you something that you had to sneak out of the building while we were busy? You knew we’d stop you.”

“I knew that your sense of duty would mean that you’d feel bound to try,” said Rip.

“This isn’t duty, Rip, this is because we care about you. I wouldn’t let any of my team leave under these circumstances without making sure that they’d thought it out. You’ve been through something terrible. You need your friends.” Barry’s eyes were open and honest. He was almost pleading with Rip.

Rip let out an annoyed huff of breath. “So that I can hurt them again? No.”

“You’ll hurt them more by leaving,” said Barry. “Look, I won’t force you to come home, but if you don’t want to go back to the Legends then you always have a home at STAR Labs. You don’t have to be alone. Just don’t leave like this, please.”

Rip looked down at his boots. “Apparently I’m not even capable of running away correctly.” He looked back up at Barry. “Fine, take me back.”

Barry didn’t give him a chance to change his mind. He was engulfed in yellow, crackling lightning and a couple of seconds later he was back in STARLabs. Barry had deposited him in the middle of the cortex, and he was now surrounded by the members of his team who had come to get him, Barry, Cisco and Caitlin.

Caitlin enveloped him in a hug. And then she hit him on his good shoulder.

“Ow!” he said.

“Don’t you ever run out on us ever again,” said Caitlin, anger flashing in her eyes.

“Why do people constantly feel the need to hit me?” he asked, with indignation.

“Because you keep doing stupid things,” replied Sara, as if it should have been obvious.

Barry grabbed a chair and indicated that Rip should sit. Rip was actually quite grateful, because he was tired and didn’t really feel up to standing whilst being interrogated on his decision to leave. He slumped in the chair. Caitlin walked away and came back with a glass of water and Rip’s painkillers. She managed to hand him both the glass and pills in a way that conveyed her continued anger.

Rip took the pills without comment, and drank half the glass of water. Caitlin took the glass back, and put two fingers on his neck, feeling his pulse. He let her without comment, feeling any fight that he had left leave him. Caitlin seemed satisfied with what she found. He rested his elbow on the arm of the chair and then his head on his hand. Sara crouched down in front of the chair.

“Why don’t you want to come back with us?” she asked, looking up at him.

Rip shrugged and shook his head. It had been at least partly to avoid questions like these and he didn’t want to answer them anymore now than he had then.

“Because you’ll never look at me the same after what I did,” said Rip. “How can you ever forgive me?” He looked up at Ray and Mick. “Any of you?”

“We already did,” said Sara. “It wasn’t you, Rip. You know it wasn’t you.”

Rip gave a half nod. “But he used _me_ , Sara! My body, and my mind. It may not have been me, but he was part of me.”

“And you honestly don’t think we can tell the difference?” asked Sara. “I knew that wasn’t you from the moment you pointed a gun at me. You’re not the first person to be mind controlled, Rip. You’re not even the first person on the team to be mind controlled this year.”

“What?” asked Rip, taken aback.

“You didn’t tell him about the Dominators?” asked Barry.

“We haven’t really had time, and the mind control bit was for, like, twenty minutes,” said Sara. “And I tried to kill Oliver. Again. But he’s kind of hard to kill and it’s sort of a thing we have now.”

“Yeah, and I found out that Barry’s lightning really hurts,” said Ray.

“Sorry about that,” said Barry, “but you fired first.”

“At least you didn’t get taken down by Baby Flash,” said Mick, with a smirk at Sara.

“Yeah, well Baby Flash could hit,” pointed out Sara, and then smirked back at Mick. “Whereas you were out for the count from one punch from Barry.”

“He prefers Kid Flash,” said Cisco, “well, maybe not prefers…”

Rip just stared at them. “All of you? You all got mind controlled, and no one bothered to mention this to me?”

“We just did,” said Mick.

“Anyway, it’s kind of a long story,” said Barry, “and as Sara said, it was only for a few minutes.”

“Not really comparable to your situation,” said Ray.

“I, er, clearly have some catching up to do,” said Rip, feeling somewhat bewildered by this news.

“So, do we get to take you home now?” asked Sara. “Gideon misses you and is getting all pissy without you.”

Rip raised an eyebrow. “Pissy?”

“She threatened to shut off life support so that she could have more CPU power,” said Sara.

“Ah,” said Rip. “Sorry about that.”

“That’s so cute,” said Cisco, “your computer missed you.”

“She’s an Artificial Intelligence,” said Rip, defensively.

“Does that mean you’re coming back?” asked Ray.

Rip looked up at the members of his team, and made a decision. “Well, we can’t have Gideon being “pissy”. I think it may be time for me to go home.”

“Good, we can get back to finding the last part of the Spear,” said Sara, with a smile on her face, getting to her feet.

“I thought that’s what you were going to do when you left here,” said Rip.

“Nah, we needed our crew back together, so we jumped straight here,” said Sara. “It wasn’t much of a detour.”

“I suppose not,” said Rip, feeling a little emotional that his team hadn’t gone on the mission without him.

“Come on,” said Caitlin, “I’ll help you to pack this time.”

Rip pushed himself to his feet, and followed Caitlin back to his room. It wasn’t until he was sure that they were out of hearing range that he spoke.

“What did you tell them?” asked Rip.

“Nothing. Barry mentioned that you’re better than you were,” said Caitlin. “You’re my patient, Rip. Everything you said in this room is confidential. None of us will say anything to anyone unless you give us your express permission.”

Rip glanced down. “Thank you. I’d prefer that they didn’t know all the details of my insecurities.”

“You shouldn’t be ashamed, Rip. You worked hard to get this far, but you do know that this is just the beginning? I’m going to ask Gideon to prescribe some appropriate antidepressants, and you can come back here whenever you need to. You’re still going to have days when you want to break tables or shut yourself away, but hopefully I’ve given you the tools to help yourself.”

“I’m really quite sorry about the table,” said Rip, still a little embarrassed by his temper tantrum. He got out the suitcase that he’d arrived with.

“We have more tables, and you needed it,” said Caitlin, and handed Rip a pile of t-shirts, which he shoved in his suitcase.

“I am very grateful for everything that you and the others have done for me. I will do my best to maintain the progress that I have made,” said Rip, and picked up the things from the new bedside table - his diary, crayons and colouring book. He fingered the edges of the colouring book, trying to decide if these were things that he wanted to bring back onto the ship with him. They were symbols of his struggle, reminders of his weakness and possibly of a time that he’d rather forget. He took a deep breath and put them in the case, on top of the t-shirts. Then he had a small change of heart. He took the pad of paper on which he’d written his diary and handed it to Caitlin.

“I would very much appreciate it if you would burn this for me,” said Rip. “I won’t judge you if you feel the need to read it first to understand why.”

Caitlin frowned. “Okay. If that’s what you want.”

“Let’s just say that there are things written in there that I’d rather forget and I don’t feel the need to drag those things back to the Waverider with me,” said Rip.

Caitlin took the diary and nodded. “I understand.”

“Do you mind if I keep this? I find that I’m missing a jacket and there is a slight chill in the air,” said Rip, indicating the hoodie that he was still wearing. It was comfortable and he sort of wanted something to remind him of his stay.

“Of course, we have lots,” said Caitlin, with an understanding smile.

Rip successfully completed putting all his belongings back in the case and Caitlin helped him get the lid closed again. He looked around the room once and turned to his doctor.

“Caitlin,” he said, “please take care of yourself. If I can ever be of assistance, and repay some of the kindness which I have been shown here, then I believe you know how to get in touch with the Waverider.”

He reached out and grasped her hand with his, took a step closer to her and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. He hoped that Julian would forgive him this small show of affection, but he felt it was necessary after everything that they had shared.

“Remember who you are, Caitlin, always, just as you’ve taught me to remember who I am.”

Caitlin covered Rip’s hand with hers. Her eyes closing at the kiss. “I promise,” she replied.

***

Cisco gave Rip the entire Doctor Who back catalogue in digital form so that he could keep watching it on the Waverider, as a going away present. This amused Sara no end, but clearly Rip was very happy to receive it and she wasn’t going to spoil the moment for him. If he’d found enjoyment in something then she wasn’t going to take that away from him by mocking it. He had very little in his life that seemed to actively make him happy. Rip smiled so rarely.

“Next time you guys are in town, we can have a serious discussion on best Doctor and best episodes,” said Cisco. “Assuming that you’ve watched them all by then.”

“I’m sure I’ll find the required time to at least get through the rest of Ten, maybe onto Eleven,” said Rip, which sounded like code to Sara, but apparently Cisco understood.

Goodbyes were said, Rip actually hugged Caitlin and shook hands with Barry and Cisco. Caitlin spoke to Gideon and Rip was escorted back on board the Waverider to medbay so that they could fix his arm properly. Rip hesitated in the doorway, looking around a little apprehensively.

“What’s wrong?” asked Sara.

“Unhappy memories,” said Rip, as he sat down on the chair nearest the door and let Gideon get to work.

“Welcome back, Captain. I trust you are feeling better,” said Gideon.

“Indeed I am Gideon,” said Rip.

“Your injury appears to be healing well. I should be able to speed up the process and then you will no longer require the sling. Dr Snow also suggested that I should administer antidepressants and my medical program concurs. Please collect them from the fabricator,” said Gideon, as the blue light played across Rip’s arm.

Rip sighed. “Of course.”

Sara’s eyebrows raised, and Rip noticed.

“What? You thought I was completely fine and back to my old self?” said Rip. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that and it has been brought to my attention that I have been neglecting my mental health for some time now. I promised Caitlin that I would continue to make what progress I can on my own and that is what I intend to do.”

“Why didn’t you tell us that you like hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows?” asked Sara.

Rip frowned at the non-sequitur. “I don’t think I’ve ever had occasion to mention it.”

“What’s my favourite drink?”

“Alcoholic?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Bourbon,” said Rip, with a light huff of a laugh. “I hope you haven’t drunk all of mine in my absence.”

“Favourite food?”

“Sweet or savoury?”

“Savoury,” said Sara.

“Anything with more chilli than the rest of us are prepared to eat, but curry especially. A hang over from your days in Nanda Parbat.”

Sara nodded. “And I bet you could tell me what everyone on the crew likes to eat and drink. It’s why there was always a box of cupcakes in the kitchen for Ray, and you started buying sugary snacks and chips for Rory whenever we’re in the right era. I only really noticed when you weren’t around to do it anymore.”

“What’s your point, Sara?”

“You never tell us anything about yourself,” said Sara.

“You know about my past. There isn’t really anything else to tell,” said Rip.

“Well, that’s a lie. I’m certain that there’s more to Rip Hunter than being a former Time Master who wanted revenge on Vandal Savage for killing his family. Barry told us that you’re really good at chess,” said Sara.

“I am, but it isn’t a skill which is of much use whilst dealing with temporal aberrations,” said Rip.

“Not everything has to be about the job, Rip,” said Sara.

Rip stared up at the ceiling. “It does for me,” said Rip. “I’m already far too attached.”

“To us?” asked Sara. “That’s a good thing. We’re a family as well as a team.”

“Regeneration complete,” said Gideon.

“Thank you, Gideon,” said Rip, giving his arm an experimental flex. “Much better.” He hopped down from the medical chair, and went to the medical fabricator to collect a bottle of pills that were waiting for him there. He looked at them, let out a long breath, and shoved them in his pocket.

“Shouldn’t I have those?” asked Sara.

Rip turned around to face her. “I’m not going to take them all at once if that’s what you’re asking. I’m not suicidal. Anymore.”

“Well that’s good to know, but I’m more worried that you’re not going to take them at all,” said Sara.

Rip rolled his eyes. “Sara, I’m a grown man.”

“Who has constantly neglected himself ever since I’ve known him,” said Sara.

“As if you’re any better,” said Rip.

“I don’t forget to eat!” said Sara, with accusation.

“No, you just train so hard that Gideon has to fix your broken bones afterwards,” replied Rip, flatly.

Sara frowned, taken aback by his retort. “How do you even…?”

“Know?” asked Rip. “Gideon informs me when anyone accesses the medbay. But who am I to stop you breaking things if you want to? Even if those things are you, and it pains me every time Gideon has to put you back together again.”

It was Sara’s turn to look guilty, then guilt turned to annoyance. “I thought you didn’t care about us. Didn’t you just say that this is only about the job? You can’t lecture me and then tell me not to return the favour!”

Rip threw his hands up in the air. “That is my entire difficulty. I do care about you all. I didn’t mean to care, I didn’t even want to, but you are important to me. So, now imagine what I felt when I realised that I had turned on all of you and hurt you, tried to kill you… plotted against you.” Rip’s eyes were dark, and he turned away from Sara.

“Imagine how we felt when we’d rescued you and had you back, and you put a knife to your own throat. Caring goes both ways,” said Sara.

“Yes, well, I admit that it was an error in judgement, but in my defence, I wasn’t exactly well,” said Rip. He took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. “I am inexperienced in caring. I’m very much used to working alone and without anyone to rescue me if something does go wrong. I realise that I should have some kind of handle on it by now, but I’m still finding it difficult. Miranda and Jonas used to be the only people I cared about or needed. I had them and I had being a Time Master and I thought it was enough, for all I know, maybe it was. But then I lost them and gained all of you and I am still coming to terms with that. To be honest, I don’t know _how_ I come to terms with that.”

“You let us in, Rip,” said Sara. “You have to stop pushing us away, and keeping us at arm’s length. And you have to start realising that you’re just as important to us as we are to you. Which means no more attempts to sacrifice yourself for us. And, please, would you stop hiding stuff from us?”

Rip took a deep breath. “I will try.”

“I mean you were happy enough to tell Team Flash all that stuff,” said Sara. “Why couldn’t you tell us?”

“I don’t really know,” said Rip. “Here, we have an important task to complete, and I’ve never been inclined towards mixing my work with frivolity. However, I never really expected to call the Waverider home either, or share it with…”

“A bunch of reject superheroes?” asked Sara.

“Now, you know better than that, Sara,” said Rip. “You have proven that you are all worthy of the name Legends.” He looked up at her. “My point, I think, is that I could have hobbies and play games whilst I was with Team Flash because they weren’t my responsibility. Whilst you may be the Legends’ Captain now, it will always be me that brought you together. You are mine to protect because of that.”

“So, because you assembled the team, you can’t be one of us?” asked Sara. There was more than a little disbelief in her tone.

Rip nodded, with a slight shrug of his shoulders as if it was something just to be accepted.

“Well, that’s stopping right now,” said Sara. “Team dinner, tonight in the galley, 7pm. Don’t be late or Mick will eat it all before you get there.”

“Sara…” began Rip, with annoyance.

“No excuses. I will drag you there myself if I have to,” she said, and turned on her heel and walked away. “We’ll be assembling on the bridge in thirty minutes to get underway. You’ve got until then to get settled back in and report to the bridge.”

***

It was his coat. That was what nearly made him lose his rather carefully honed calm exterior. He’d decided to change out of his STARLabs hoodie and back into his everyday clothes. He hadn’t even really thought about setting foot on his bridge in anything else, but when he picked it up he had remembered the moment two weeks ago when he’d left it here. He’d left it behind because this was part of him. This was Rip Hunter, and two weeks ago, he hadn’t been that man. He’d been broken and hurt and afraid. None of that was the man who wore this coat.

Not that he was completely whole again, as he’d told Sara. He would take the antidepressants, do his CBT exercises and probably arrange further trips to see Caitlin in 2017. He knew that he had work to do. He knew that he’d never properly dealt with the grief he carried for his wife and child, but he had started that process now. He had started to heal the injuries that had been done to him over the years, including his most recent one.

He still wasn’t certain that he’d ever really, truly forgive himself for his betrayal of the team, but he did know that he wasn’t the man who had done those terrible things to the people he called friends. This man here and now was Rip Hunter. This man, who stood in the middle of his quarters shrugging the tan duster onto his shoulders, and was now a former Captain of the Waverider (and the “former” would take some getting used to), was Rip Hunter. And he would protect his team no matter what.

“Gideon, how did you know about our kiss?” asked Rip.

“I simply entered your mind with Captain Lance and Mr Jackson via the Cognitive Intrusion device,” said Gideon. “And assumed my own avatar.”

Rip looked up at the ceiling. “I’m fairly certain that isn’t part of your programming.”

“You are well aware that my programming is flexible. However, protecting my Captain is my primary function. I could not leave that to Captain Lance and Mr Jackson.”

“I don’t deserve you, my friend,” said Rip, with a shake of his head.

“On the contrary, given the amount of trouble you get into, I am exactly what you need.”

Rip had no idea what he said to that. He and Gideon had been a team for many years and he was still finding out new things about her.

“Gideon…”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Thank you for informing Mr Rory of my intention to end my life. I have come to realise that I have a great deal to live for.”

“I concur, Captain,” replied Gideon.

Rip gave only a thoughtful nod in reply.

“Could you please fabricate me a larger copy of the picture of Miranda and Jonas that is in my watch, in an appropriate frame and size to keep on my desk.”

“It would be my pleasure,” replied the AI. “I will inform you when it is ready for collection.”

“Thank you. And put a standard lock on your database for the next few weeks around this period of 2017.”

“The crew are already strongly advised not to look at this period and require your verbal confirmation to access it,” said Gideon.

“Yes, I realise that. This is for me. I don’t believe I can now be objective about making alterations to this time period so it is better for me not to know what the possible future here is. Please remind me of that if I ever attempt to access data for this period,” said Rip.

“Yes, Captain.”

He drew himself up to his full height, straightened his back and strode out of his quarters towards the bridge.

***

Julian walked into the Lab to find Caitlin sat alone and quietly crying to herself over a pad of paper.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, with concern in his voice.

Caitlin quickly wiped at her tears. “Sorry,” she said. “I thought I’d have time to do this before anyone else got in to the lab.”

“Do what?” asked Julian.

They had been on their first real date the night before, and he thought that it had gone reasonably well. He definitely was feeling something towards Caitlin and he hated to see her upset.

“Rip asked me to burn his diary,” said Caitlin, “but gave me his permission to read it first.”

“Ah,” said Julian. He was well aware of the things that Rip had struggled with and imagined that any diary written during the period that Caitlin had been helping him would be hard reading.

“It’s not what you think,” said Caitlin. “I mean all of that stuff is in there. He wrote a list every morning of all the ways that he could think of to kill himself. He wrote about his inability to separate himself from the things he’d done…”

“But that isn’t why you’re crying?” asked Julian, gently.

“No,” said Caitlin, finding it hard to even get the words out. “He wrote a love letter to his wife... It’s beautiful. He really, really loved her, and she’s gone, and he couldn’t save her.” She put her head in her hands and sobbed.

Julian went to Caitlin and gathered her into his arms, kneeling beside her chair.

“Yeah, but he’s not on his own,” said Julian. “That anger from Sara when she saw he’d been hurt? That was because they care about him. He’s in good hands.”

“I know,” said Caitlin, “but we care about him too now.”

“And I will always be grateful to him for keeping you safe,” said Julian, planting a tentative kiss on Caitlin’s lips.

She smiled through her tears as he pulled back. Julian took out his pocket handkerchief and offered it to Caitlin. She dried her eyes a little.

“Tell me about your sister,” said Caitlin. “Tell me about Emma.”

Julian frowned. “Now?”

Caitlin nodded. “If you want to,” she added, clearly wondering if she’d just said totally the wrong thing. She hadn’t. Until this moment, Julian hadn’t really considered that he needed to talk about Emma.

“Why?”

“Because you miss her and loved her, and I want to help you remember. But most importantly because you are someone I care about, Julian, and people that are important to you are important to me too.” Caitlin’s eyes held a deep sincerity that he’d rarely seen in them before.

Julian frowned, he found himself sitting down in the other lab chair, scooting it over so that he could still hold Caitlin’s hand.

 “Grief is a funny thing,” said Julian. “There are days when I struggle to remember her face, and other days when I can’t forget it.”

He took out his wallet, and removed the picture of Emma that he carried there. He tentatively handed it to Caitlin, who took it with reverence.

“Let me tell you about my brilliant, beautiful sister,” he said, and he did, starting with how they used to drive their mother crazy by pretending to be daleks.

***

“I really am very sorry about everything,” said Rip, to his assembled team. The team dinner had been a good idea. It felt like everyone needed this moment to bring Rip back into the fold properly. They’d eaten and drunk and now were attacking a large mound of ice cream for dessert. They were arrayed around a large round table in the galley, with Sara on one side of Rip and Martin on the other.

“It wasn’t you,” said Sarah. “This is you,” indicating the whole of Rip with a hand.

“I am aware of that, but I can’t help but shoulder some of the blame,” said Rip, finding it impossible to meet the eyes of his team. “My duty was to protect the Spear and I have failed very badly at that.”

“You haven’t failed yet,” said Ray. “I think we’re winning if anything. I mean, we got you back and survived the Jurassic. Again. And as long as we’ve got one piece of the Spear, they can’t put it back together.”

“Yeah, we’re going to kick the Legion’s ass. We’ll protect Nate’s grandfather and get the last part of the Spear,” added Jax, with more enthusiasm than Rip really thought was required.

Martin’s eyebrows raised at his other half’s pronouncement. “Unfortunately, I doubt the Legion will make our job easy.”

“Quite,” said Rip, reaching for the double chocolate chip.

“Henry is a very resourceful individual,” said Amaya. “If we can make contact then we’ll have another ally to help us.”

“I really hope so,” said Nate. “I’m just worried that they’ve already found him.”

“All they know is that I dropped him off in 1965. They don’t know exactly where. I had to maintain my usefulness to them somehow after all,” said Rip, with disgust at himself.

“Don’t do that,” said Sara.

“What?” asked Rip.

“That thing where you blame yourself for stuff that wasn’t your fault,” said Sara. “I’m actually kind of glad that you were useful to the Legion, because they’d have killed you if you weren’t.”

Rip frowned. “Well, I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.”

“Less talking, more eating,” said Mick. “Rip’s back, we’re all happy. Hand me the rocky road.”

Ray passed Mick the required ice-cream, and the arsonist proceeded to eat it straight out of the tub. Nate let out an audible groan.

“Really, Mick? Some of us might have wanted that too.”

“Your problem, not mine,” replied Mick and carried on eating.

“So, Cisco said that you’ve been watching Doctor Who,” said Ray, looking at Rip. “I thought maybe we could have a movie night, well, a TV night anyway.”

“Doctor Who?” asked Amaya, sounding out each word as if they were foreign.

“It’s a television programme,” said Nate.

Amaya looked a little puzzled. “Television is kind of a new concept where I’m from. There wasn’t much on at all.”

“Well, I haven’t watched much of it, but Cisco is a huge fan and it’s about time travel,” said Ray.

“Yeah, I’ve seen some of it,” said Jax. “It’s British, right?”

“Yes, and the time machine is an old, blue police box,” said Ray. “It’s bigger on the inside than the outside.”

“Which is the most unbelievable bit of it,” interjected Rip, gesturing with the hand that currently did not hold his ice-cream spoon. “Time ships do not defy physics in the real world.”

“That actually sounds like it might be quite interesting,” said Martin.

“A bit lightweight for you, Professor,” said Mick.

“Maybe we need something lightweight,” said Sara. “I think a distraction might be just what we need.”

“Please, don’t feel you need to do this on my account,” said Rip, feeling a little embarrassed by his team’s interest in such a trivial matter as a television programme that he’d been watching.

Sara sighed and leaned back in her chair with an amused smile on her lips. “I bet you were going to shut yourself away in your room and watch them on your own.”

“The thought had occurred,” replied Rip. It had actually been quite a nice thought too, but apparently he wasn’t going to be allowed any peace and quiet. He might as well embrace it. “But obviously you’d all miss the joy of poking holes in the time travel of Doctor Who if I did that, so I suppose we will have to make an evening of it.”

“And tomorrow we will rescue Nate’s grandfather and get the final piece of the Spear,” said Sara.

“Go us,” said Ray.

“We shouldn’t underestimate the Legion,” said Rip.

“We won’t,” said Amaya.

“But first,” said Sara, and grabbed her glass holding it up for a toast. “Welcome back, Rip Hunter, assembler of Legends, designated adult and friend.”

The team raised their glasses and there were enthusiastic agreements, followed by the downing of drinks.

Rip gave them a small smile, trying not to blush as he looked at the much broader smiles of his team. “Thank you. It really is very good to be home.”

And it really was.

***

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for reading and leaving comments. I hope you've enjoyed this rather angsty journey. This isn't what I set out to write but it is what seemed to work. I kind of like how it turned out.
> 
> Whilst I was writing this I found Arthur Darvill singing Falling Slowly on YouTube and it fits quite nicely with this final chapter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0cftRE2O8g The guy can really sing. Here's hoping for a Legends musical episode one day.


End file.
